Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – A new report by the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) has highlighted Australia’s attractiveness for investment into critical minerals.
Australia consistently ranks among the top five sources of a number of critical minerals, including cobalt, lithium, manganese, niobium, tungsten, vanadium and antimony, and in the top ten for graphite and rare-earth elements.
“With critical minerals essential to global economic development but geographically concentrated, Australia is well placed to extract and produce these high performance minerals,” MCA CEO Tania Constable said on Wednesday.
“Australia has pioneered new advances in extractive technologies, processing ores into metals and is ideally placed to lead the growth, diversity and new applications of critical minerals globally.
“Our world-leading minerals sector supports the industries and products of the future with a strong and proven commitment to sustainability, community engagement, rehabilitation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Constable noted that Australia has built its mining industry on a reputation for smart, sophisticated, sustainable exploration, mining and minerals processing – from bulk commodities like iron-ore, coal and bauxite to metals like gold, copper and nickel and increasingly critical metals like lithium.
“Critical minerals are already a multibillion-dollar industry in Australia, with many new projects at advanced stages of development that will soon be ready to support the world’s growing needs.”
In addition to hosting a significant amount of the global critical mineral resource, Australia also has a highly skilled mining workforce, established high-quality infrastructure, extensive geoscience data sets, and supportive and stable state and federal government policy.