Push to reopen old mines in NSW in global race for critical minerals
Residents, local councils and environmental groups are calling for government intervention as exploration for the critical mineral antimony ramps up on the New South Wales north coast, citing concerns over the potential for contamination of the regional water supply.
A swathe of exploration licences have been approved across the region in recent months, with one mining company, Trigg Minerals, establishing a 30-acre base at Wild Cattle Creek on the Dorrigo Plateau in preparation for drilling work.
Antimony is a silvery, lustrous grey metalloid used in flame retardants, solar panels, alloys, batteries and military equipment. It's listed as a critical mineral by the US and the European Union. Australia has 7.7% of all global stores but makes up just 2% of all global production, according to Geoscience Australia.
But locals on the Dorrigo Plateau are concerned about the risk of runoff from antimony exploration entering local waterways, particularly given the area's high rainfall and steep topography.
Antimony levels above the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) were detected on two separate occasions at Shannon Creek Dam, a 30,000 megalitre water source for the Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour regions, in March 2025. It followed torrential rain due to ex-tropical cyclone Alfred, which saw 1,000mm fall in seven days on an area which includes an old antimony mine site.
With the exception of a period of exploratory drilling 15 years ago, the mine has not been active since the 1970s.
The mayor of Clarence Valley council, Ray Smith, called on the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to provide a briefing to council on the risk of antimony projects in the vicinity of the water catchment.
Trigg Minerals' managing director, Andre Booyzen, said the results were unrelated to his company's project.
'We haven't even started exploring; we are still working on getting access,' he said.
Concerns have also been raised about the storage and transport of antimony samples, after a car and trailer crash on 22 April spilled antimony samples at Bielsdown Bridge in Dorrigo. The EPA confirmed that no debris from the crash entered waterways.
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Booyzen confirmed the incident but claimed there was 'no danger of anything getting polluted' as the antimony levels in the samples were 0.0001%.
The Wild Cattle Creek area was mined on and off for antimony from 1890 until 1975, when falling prices forced the closure of the local industry.
Trigg's Wild Cattle Creek project is 'probably the biggest undeveloped antimony resource in Australia, if not the world', Booyzen said. In a presentation to investors, delivered on YouTube, he said the deposit contained 1.5 million tonnes of mineral resource with an average grade of just below 2%.
With prices skyrocketing from US$10,000 a tonne in 2023 to US$60,000 in May 2025, mining companies have their sights on the Dorrigo Plateau once more.
Shelley Griffin lives next door to the land purchased by Trigg and has a disused mine site on her property.
Anchor Resources, which sold the exploration licence for Wild Cattle Creek to Trigg in 2024, gained access to her land for exploratory drilling in 2009, despite her objections, and was later fined by the state government in 2012 for sub-standard remediation work. Samples from the drilling remain discarded on her property.
She has been receiving letters and calls from Trigg since January but also plans to oppose its bid to access her land.
'When [Anchor] eventually left I thought this was the end, there is no more,' she said. 'Every year they haven't been on I have celebrated.'
Also within the boundaries of Trigg's exploration licence is the Yammacoona Rural Co-operative, a 550-acre commune founded in 1980.
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Founding member Simon Fraser said antimony mining was an 'existential threat' to the community.
'Aerial surveys have shown that there are significant deposits underneath Yammacoona,' he said.
Gumbaynggirr elder Uncle Cecil Briggs, 86, said he was terrified of the prospect of mining in an area of special significance for his people.
'Mining is a destroyer of our country,' he said. 'It pollutes the water and it contaminates the air.'
The ecologist Mark Graham, a former Coffs Harbour city councillor, said the steep terrain and extreme rainfall of the Dorrigo Plateau made the area particularly vulnerable to run-off from mining activities.
'There is no physical way to contain all runoff in such steep terrain and in extreme rainfall events so pollution of the drinking water catchment with antimony and other toxic elements such as arsenic is inevitable,' he said.
Water test results provided to the local council by Anchor Resources in 2011 from creeks surrounding a historic mine site and contemporary exploration works at Wild Cattle Creek showed arsenic levels above ADWG levels at two sites, with four other sites showing high levels but not above Australian guidelines. Antimony was detected above ADWG levels at three sites.
Booyzen said contamination risks can be effectively managed.
'There is always a danger of runoff from a mine, but you try to minimise the risk as much as you can through proper design, engineering and build quality,' he said.
'Even in huge rainfall events, the design of tailings dams, processing facilities etc means there is no release from the mine site at all.'
Grassroots action group the Clarence Catchment Alliance has called for a permanent ban on all mineral mining activities in the catchment.
'The significant environmental, cultural and economic risks, including threats to water quality, biodiversity, endangered species, Indigenous cultural sites, water-based local industry and the health of local communities, demand urgent action,' coordinator Shae Fleming said.
Fleming said flood zones and drinking water catchments should be 'clearly designated as no-go zones' for mining.
A spokesperson for NSW Resources said the state has 'robust health and environmental regulations' to ensure community safety.
The NSW natural resources minister, Courtney Houssos, declined to comment on the suitability of the Wild Cattle Creek project, but has previously expressed her vision for the state to become a 'leader in critical minerals exploration'.
Douglas Connor is a journalist and editor on the NSW mid-north coast
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The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Death, violence and endless delay: Inside Africa's most troubled energy project
Campaigners have demanded the UK government pull its funding for a natural gas mega project in Mozambique – alleging that it breaches Britain's human rights and environmental obligations. The project in question is a $20 billion (£15bn) liquified natural gas (LNG) development located in the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique. The project, called Mozambique LNG, has been halted since 2021 after violence from an Isis-backed group led to 183 contractors being trapped in a hotel for two days, with 10 people killed when apparently trying to escape, including British national Philip Mawer. In all, the ongoing insurgency in the area has resulted in an estimated 6,000 deaths since the conflict began in 2017, with some 600,000 people displaced. In a letter seen by The Independent, campaign group Oil Change International (OCI) argues that the violence and other issues over the protection of the project makes a potential $1.15bn investment by UK Export Finance, a department of the UK government untenable. Continuing to finance the project is also not compatible with environmental commitments made in 2021 to no longer finance fossil fuels abroad, OCI argues. A tale of violence, delay and legal action was never meant to be the story of Mozambique's foray into natural gas, after some 180 trillion cubic feet of gas was discovered off the country's coast in 2010. In 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected 34 per cent GDP growth for Mozambique by 2021. However, actual economic growth was around 2.5 per cent. TotalEnergies, the French energy firm, is currently in the process of trying to re-start the project by the middle of this year. 'The security situation has improved," CEO Patrick Pouyanne told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Gas conference earlier this month. Pouyanne's ambitions received a big boost in March when the US Export-Import Bank re-approved financial support worth $4.7bn for the project, boosting TotalEnergies' hopes of restarting the project. But the future of Mozambique LNG remains up in the air, with the British export credit agency still considering whether to recommit to its $1.15bn pledge – having joining with 33 countries, including the US, to sign a pledge to end public finance for fossil fuel projects abroad while hosting the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021. According to OCI campaigner Adam McGibbon, if the UK pulls out of the deal then the entire financial arrangement is expected to collapse. 'We know of at least one major bank involved in the deal that has said they will also pull out if the UK does,' he says. The legal letter sent by OCI argues that the funding of the LNG project in Mozambique goes against the UK's obligations under international law to promote human rights in business both domestically and abroad. The letter highlights the UN's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state that companies and nations must ensure that human rights are respected in relation to business operations. A UK Export Finance spokesperson said: 'UK Export Finance is currently in talks with project sponsors and other lenders regarding the latest status of the LNG production project in Mozambique. 'We take reports of alleged human rights infringement extremely seriously and are looking further into the matters.' 'The Qatar of Africa' Observers at the time the gas was discovered off the coast of Mozambique suggested that the country – one of the world's poorest – could transform into the 'Qatar of Africa'. A number of massive projects aiming to ship the gas around the world in the form of LNG were soon proposed. TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG project stands out for its sheer size, with the $20bn in financing a figure roughly the same size as Mozambique's entire GDP. The 65 trillion cubic feet of gas it was expected to deliver is the equivalent of six years of current EU gas demand. But in March 2021, the 'force majeure' declaration was made, which enables parties to renege on an agreement due to unforeseen external circumstances. It came after Islamist insurgents captured swathes of territory in the Cabo Delgado region, and at least 1,400 people were left killed or missing presumed dead. Earlier this year French authorities began investigating TotalEnergies over potential corporate manslaughter, after survivors and relatives of victims of the event accused the energy giant of failing to protect its workers. In a statement shared with The Independent, a spokesperson for TotalEnergies said that they will ' cooperate with this investigation', but that 'the company categorically rejects' the accusations. 'Mozambique LNG's teams provided emergency assistance and mobilised their resources to evacuate more than 2,500 people (civilians, employees, contractors, and subcontractors) from the site where the Mozambique LNG project is located at the time of the attacks,' the spokesperson said. But some say the need to resettle people so that the land can used for the project has aided recruitment for the insurgents. 'The local population is being deprived of jobs, in a scenario where pressure on land is increasing, where people are losing access to land, losing access to natural resources,' wrote local analyst Joao Feijo earlier this year. 'The discontent that is created here is very great and this kind of discontent is capitalised on by these violent groups. Many individuals joined this group because they had no other alternative,' he added. Signs of discontent can be found in villagers claiming that they have not been sufficiently compensated for giving up land that most rely on for subsistence farming, according to evidence collected by local NGO Justica Ambiental, after Mozambique LNG was given rights to 6,625 hectares of land to build its liquefaction terminal. 'We agreed that the company would take our areas, but when they took our areas – the forests and fields – and they didn't want to pay us, they denied it,' said Neto Agostino Paulo resident of Macala Village, in footage captured by Justica Ambiental in summer 2024. Fellow Macala villager Adija Momade Sumail Nkabwi said: 'The company came here to lie to us that they were going to compensate us for our property that they had occupied, leaving us with false expectations'. The spokesperson for TotalEnergies told The Independent that prior to the force majeure announcement, 89 per cent of compensation payments had been paid within six months of the signing of compensation agreements, and 66 per cent were paid within 90 days. 'The Force Majeure situation has prevented the full implementation of the relocation and compensation process and has slowed down the exercise,' they said. 'Drill baby, drill' For OCI's Adam McGibbon, the violence and displacement witnessed in Cabo Delgado is a 'classic example of the resource curse': The phenomenon where resource-rich countries with abundant natural resources ironically end up with a multitude of problems. Nigeria and Angola – both oil-rich countries plagued by corruption and inequality – are oft-cited examples of countries to have suffered this fate in Africa. At the same time, it has also been said that given the low living standards of countries like Mozambique, any opportunity to bring in billions of dollars of foreign investment is a good thing. Some, like former Irish President Mary Robinson, have argued that African nations should be allowed to extract natural gas to develop. But there are growing concerns that the economic benefits originally conceived in Mozambique LNG might not ever materialise, even if the project goes ahead as planned. For all the talk of ' Drill baby, drill ' coming from Donald Trump in the White House right now, the prospects of a major new LNG production terminal are much weaker than in 2020. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and subsequently shut off pipeline gas flows to Europe, planned new LNG facilities in the US and Qatar have driven up projections of global LNG capacity. An increase of nearly 50 per cent is currently on the horizon, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This ' LNG glut ', as the IEA describes it, is exacerbated by renewables continually beating targets in Europe and Asia, as well as a global push for 'energy security' that did not exist in 2020, and which is making governments less inclined to rely on expensive liquefied gas imports for energy. 'If and when TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG project gets off the ground, it will be adding further supply into a market characterised by oversupply and lacklustre demand,' says Simon Nicholas, from IEEFA, a think tank. 'This can hardly be a surprise: There is a long history in Sub-Saharan Africa of fossil fuel projects doing nothing to boost development in the host country.' If global gas markets are oversupplied, there is a risk that Mozambique LNG will become a 'stranded asset', which will plummet in value – or even become a liability for Mozambique. Even a 'moderate-paced transition' away from fossil fuels globally would lead to Mozambique seeing gas revenues of just 20 per cent of what they would be in a slow-paced transition, a report from the think tank Carbon Tracker has found. The authors described countries looking to exploit oil and gas assets for the first time as making a 'significant gamble'. 'Huge economic costs' TotalEnergies has also structured its LNG deals in a way that activists have warned is disadvantageous to Mozambique, with revenues Mozambique set to come in the mid-2030s and 2040s, think tank IISD has said. This means that if the project does not see out its lifespan, TotalEnergies and other partners will have seen an outsize share of profits so far, with Mozambique losing out. Mozambique also faces 'substantial economic risks' related to investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), a separate report from Columbia University found last year. ISDS are lawsuits where foreign investors sue countries where they have invested if they believe the government has violated the terms of the agreement. Mozambique's international investment agreements allow foreign investors to bypass the national judicial system in such disputes, the report found, while 'stabilisation clauses' protect investments from unexpected regulatory changes or new fiscal rules, potentially preventing Mozambique enacting new legislation to transition away from fossil fuels. 'What they have basically done is said Mozambique cannot invest in climate action without paying huge economic costs,' says Daniel Ribeiro, a Mozambican activist with Justica Ambiental. Such an arrangement is likely to 'only amplify social tensions in Cabo Delgado,' if little money is seen to reach local people while a Western company makes large profits, warns Ribeiro. Given the insurgency, delays, and economic concerns, it might seem the simplest thing for Mozambique to do would be to try and pull out of the deal. However, the country has racked up government debts since gas was discovered, using expected future gas revenues as collateral for borrowing. But expectations have not matched reality. The year 2016 also saw a corruption scandal rock the country after it was found that members of the Mozambican Government had secretly taken out loans for themselves from London-based banks, using assurances of future LNG gas revenues to do so. A 2023 report from Debt Justice found that the Mozambican government has been paying back some of those loans. Mozambique's external national debt more than doubled between 2010 and 2018, according to CEICC data, while Friends of the Earth has warned that potential corruption arising from the 'mere promises of LNG development' may have already cost the country more than any actual profit the project could generate for the country over its lifetime. For Ribeiro, who lives in the Mozambican capital of Maputo, the priority for the country should be investing in renewables and climate change adaptation. 'My main message is that the cost of climate change is going to be far greater than any profits from Mozambique LNG, and that should be the priority,' he says. The country is considered one of the most climate-vulnerable on the continent, exposed to extreme weather concerns including cyclones, droughts and floods. Cyclone Kenneth, which hit Cabo Delgado in 2019, caused damage estimated at $300m. But the Trump administration has a different idea about what is good for the country. Weeks before confirming its $4.7bn loan for Mozambique LNG, the US government shut down the USAID-backed Power Africa programme's operations in the country – with an emphasis on renewable energy – which has been leading efforts to boost energy access, in a country where only 40 per cent of the country's population has access to electricity. 'Cycle of death' The push to resume the Mozambique LNG project also comes despite the fact that the Islamist insurgency very much remains a threat. While insurgents no longer control full towns and villages, they have become more agile, and have stepped up the number of road blocks in recent weeks, according to local media. 'There are still believed to be several insurgency units of hundred or so people, and they still have the ability to make attacks and destabilise the area,' says Ribeiro. 'And every time they suffer losses, they continue to be able to recruit. Why? Because we are still not dealing with the economic and social drivers of the problem,' he adds. The EU is currently funding Rwandan troops to help protect the region - but this arrangement is also under threat due to accusations Rwanda has been supporting rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as allegations that the Mozambican government is using units trained by the EU for protest suppression. For Marisa Lourenço, an independent risk analyst in Southern Africa, the threat of violence is 'definitely still there' in Cabo Delgado. She believes that while TotalEnergies will be able to securely lock down its site on the coast, it remains unclear if doing so is worth the money. 'TotalEnergies can secure the site. But is the infrastructure cost worth it? Will it recoup its sunken costs? Probably not. TotalEnergies rushed into taking on this project, and I think it regrets it,' she believe. For Mozambique, meanwhile, it remains clear for Ribeiro that the best option is for the country to pull out of the project. 'Pulling out will cause a whole host of problems in the short term, but it will help us emerge from this cycle of death,' he says. So long as the project continues, the Western world can turn a blind eye to what is happening in Mozambique, by imagining that it is financially supporting the country, believes Ribeiro. But if the project fails, then the country can focus on other development pathways that actually benefit the people. 'It's like a chronic condition that keeps flaring up, for which there is no cure' he says. 'Sometimes you just need to take the bullet.'
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
China has a stranglehold on the world's rare-earths supply chain. Can Australia break it?
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Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion But now, it's also taken on the pressing aim of shoring up supplies of materials required for national interests, including defence. Australia, rich in resources, is seen as a natural competitor to China that could break into its rare-earths supply chain. The Albanese government has openly discussed this desire for well over two years, and officials have crisscrossed the country, from Dubbo in New South Wales to Western Australia and Northern Territory, offering grants, funding and other assistance in order to develop bona fide domestic processing capabilities. Notably, the government has backed the development of Iluka's Eneabba project in WA, which is designed to come online in 2027 and produce several rare-earth oxides, including dysprosium and terbium. 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The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
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