Latest news with #AustralianStrategicMaterials
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Rare earths are finally a household name
Interest in the rare earths space has never been stronger The space has made mainstream headlines this year Australian players are leveraging off a strong push by the US and other governments Interest in the rare earths space has never been stronger, as the West ramps up its efforts to secure supply. Rowena Smith, managing director of Australian Strategic Materials, which is developing the Dubbo rare earths project in New South Wales, said the vulnerability of the rare earths supply chain had been known for a long time. 'The awareness has been there, but what we didn't see was action,' she told reporters on the sidelines of Diggers and Dealers in Kalgoorlie last week. 'We saw a lot of talk, a lot of awareness, of people feeling they still had time before they needed to actually do anything, and what has happened with Liberation Day and then China's response of putting restrictions on rare earths is that it's moved that from talk to action – and action with urgency. 'We're seeing that with government. We're seeing it with the magnet producers. We're seeing that with the end markets. 'And the end markets are the car manufacturers, the robotics manufacturers, the defence industries, and they are realising that they are unacceptably vulnerable to supply chain disruption, and they need to have some redundancy in their supply chain, so it's really sped up the discussions.' Hitting the mainstream Rare earths burst into the mainstream media at the start of the year when US President Donald Trump announced plans to purchase Greenland, partially to access its mineral endowment. Trump also signed an executive order which pledged to make the US 'the leading producer and processor of non-fuel minerals, including rare earth minerals', which sparked retaliatory export controls by China. In late April, the US signed a deal with Ukraine that would give the US access to Ukraine's mineral resources in exchange for establishing an investment fund to rebuild Ukraine. At the G7 meeting in June, rare earths was also a major agenda item, with the seven countries involved in the group establishing a Critical Minerals Action Plan. On Sunday night, Australia's 60 Minutes program ran a piece on Energy Transition Minerals' Kvanefjeld rare earths project after sending a crew and reporter to Greenland, helping to spark a run up in its share price ahead of a retraction from the company about statements around the in-ground vale of its resource. Just yesterday, the BBC ran a piece based on a visit to Iluka Resources' government-backed Eneabba rare earths refinery in Western Australia. All this attention has not gone unnoticed by junior companies previously confined to the margins. Victory Metals managing director Brendan Clark told Stockhead that rare earths' day in the sun had been a long time coming. 'I've lived and breathed this for quite a few years now, so I kind of knew it was inevitable,' he said. 'I don't think there's been any commodity before that has … received as much attention from government, where they're willing to, like Iluka, fund up to $1.8 billion in some way or form to develop these projects. 'If you're a base metals project, you've got to go out there and find the money yourself. 'These rare earth projects, you're just getting money thrown at you from multiple governments and multiple sources, so it's actually a whole different ballpark and the promotion is certainly getting a lot easier than when I started out a few years ago.' More than a US story While the US' moves have been a big focus, including its deal to take equity in domestic producer MP Materials, rare earths leaders say the interest is coming from everywhere. In April, Victory received a letter of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States for up to US$190 million in project financing support for its North Stanmore heavy rare earths, scandium and hafnium Project in Western Australia. Two months later, it received a US$10 million loan from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund Sanabil Investments. 'There's a lot of interest coming out of France, the Middle East – it's pretty much everywhere,' Clark said. 'We've got funding opportunities from all over the world, and it's just a matter of us, at the moment, being very strategic about our next steps. 'But in my view, it's pay to play. We're not going to enter into free deals with anyone – if you want our offtake, there's going to be some contribution to developing this project, which is really great for shareholder value, because it just means less dilution.' The Australian government has announced a plan to establish a $1.2 billion critical minerals strategic reserve, which is expected to include rare earths, though Clark has his doubts. 'I just think they're going to be under a great amount of pressure to be able to even secure that kind of supply, unless they do some creative business, because there's so much demand coming from outside of Australia,' he said. Meanwhile, Smith has been spending a lot of time on the road this year to capitalise on the interest. She's been to the US four times, while her team has made another two trips, and she's in South Korea this week. 'We're seeing very strong engagement, so I think it's not just the US who are reacting,' she said. 'I think all of this noise has meant that Korean manufacturers are saying, 'okay, where am I going to get my materials from?' And they're thinking much more proactively about moving up that supply chain, and similarly, we're seeing movement from Japan. 'I think we're seeing everybody moving at the moment. Some are moving faster than others, and I think the challenge for Australia will be keeping pace.' Heavy interest Clark says the key differentiator for Victory was North Stanmore's heavy rare earths. On Monday, Victory updated the resource estimate for North Stanmore, reporting heavy rare earth oxide to total rare earth oxide ratios of up to 83%, which Clark described as 'unheard of'. 'There's no one else in Australia that's publicly listed, or in the world, that has the same scale as us in a clay system with the same ratios of heavy earths,' he said. He said the prices for heavy rare earths outside of China were finally moving. 'Things like yttrium, that was the ugly duckling and I think the least valuable heavy earth at about US$7 or US$8 a kilogram, you're starting to see some non-Chinese prices now for yttrium at US$50 a kilogram,' Clark said. 'So that is a game changer, because the market was so manipulated and brokers and the industry were just following what weren't real prices, and that was the Chinese prices.' ASM is already producing a small quantity of heavy rare earths from its Korean Metals Plant and achieved its first sales last month. Smith said developing the heavy rare earths side of the business was important and noted that US government-backed MP only produced a very small quantity of heavies. ' going to have to work with allied nations to be able to source it, so I think particularly for heavy rare earths, you are going to see investment flowing offshore,' she said.
ABC News
5 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
Women in mining say industry missing out on female leadership talent
At this year's Diggers and Dealers conference, about 2,500 mining delegates touched down in WA's gold city of Kalgoorlie to hear from the very top of the industry. But of the more than 40 directors, chief executives, and chairs who took to the panel stage, only one was a woman. Chief executive and managing director of Australian Strategic Materials (ASM) Rowena Smith said she was "very pleased" to have been invited to speak. "I spent an enormous amount of time in the audience in the early years, and I didn't see any women on the stage," she said. Ms Smith said the increase in women at the event was positive. "Twenty years ago … there were [also] very few women in the audience," she said. "As I stood there on the stage on Monday, I was looking out into so many women's faces." The 2025 Global Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows the number of top-level management positions held by women in the oil, gas and mining industry is only around 16 per cent. It is a fact author and gold expert Sandra Close knows all too well. She was the first woman geologist in the field in Australia at a time when the industry looked very different. "[When] I started, it was zero women with hands-on jobs in the mining industry," Dr Close said. "It was quite a lot to break through." She moved from geology to high-level resource financing, later becoming the senior executive at a multinational resources group. But despite her accolades, including a nomination for Senior Australian of the Year, there is one part of the industry Dr Close never entered. According the WEF, in 2024, only about 14 per cent of new hires to top leadership positions in the oil, gas and mining industry were women. It is part of a steady global decline in women being hired to top-level management roles since the pandemic. Journalist and equality advocate Catherine Fox said it was "just not good enough." "The number of women at the decision-making table is … sadly either plateauing or going backwards," she said. Ms Fox said she thought US President Donald Trump's dismantling of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) laws in the US was starting to spread to Australia. She believes changes are already happening "under the surface". "I think that backlash that women [have] already gone far enough, in fact we might have gone too far, is gathering pace," she said. "We fought for years to get the word 'diversity' taken seriously, now people are changing it to things like 'productivity.'" Ms Smith said it was important the industry encouraged more women into leadership roles. "One of the things that will encourage that is men seeing women do the job … seeing is believing," Ms Smith said. She also said the industry needed to stop holding women to a higher standard than men. "We're perceived to be a higher risk candidate, and therefore the benchmark seems to go up," she said. "I don't think men have the same need [as women] to be exceptional." Dr Close said the mining industry could not afford to continue excluding women like herself from top roles. "When you'd have the sort of experience that I've had … I think it would have been fascinating," Dr Close said.
Reuters
06-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Australia's ASM sees jump in rare earths enquiries amid supply shortage
June 6 (Reuters) - Australian Strategic Materials ( opens new tab said on Friday there has been increased interest from customers for rare earth metals and alloys from its critical metals facility in South Korea, following China's export controls on rare earth materials. The critical metals producer's Korean Metals Plant is one of the few facilities outside of China with the capability to commercially produce rare earth metals and alloys. Shares of the company rose as much as 29.1% to A$0.655 to hit a more than 3-week high in early trade before paring some gains. The broader benchmark index edged 0.1% lower. ASM has concluded purchase orders from U.S.-based Noveon Magnetics and Vacuumschmelze, owned by private equity firm ARA partners, for the supply of rare earth alloys, it said in a statement. The company is progressing discussions with parties for further sales of a range of rare earth metals amid ongoing talks around future supply with USA Rare Earths, after providing rare earth samples to the firm. It also completed delivery of 19-metric-ton rare earth metal sale to Magnequench, a division of Canada-based Neo Performance Materials ( opens new tab. China, which accounts for about 90% of global rare-earth production, imposed export restrictions in April on the strategic minerals in response to tariffs introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump. With increased disruptions to the rare earth supply due to China's export restrictions, the company is positioned to provide alternative supply to the rest of the world, it said.
AllAfrica
28-04-2025
- Business
- AllAfrica
Australia strategic reserve to counter China's mineral monopolies
The world needs huge quantities of critical minerals to make batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines, mobile phones, computers and advanced weaponry. Many of these minerals lie under Australian soil. Australia is able to produce 9 out of 10 mineral elements required to produce lithium-ion batteries, such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. It also has the highest total reserves of battery minerals. But at a time of major geopolitical upheaval, critical minerals are also contested. China controls many critical mineral supply chains, allowing it to dominate clean energy technologies. The ongoing United States–China trade war has intensified competition for access to critical minerals. It's against this backdrop that Labor has proposed a A$1.2 billion (US$765.7 million) strategic reserve of critical minerals. It's a timely and welcome step in the right direction. Critical minerals are vital to the industries of the future. But supply can be hard to secure and disruptions can be devastating. After US President Donald Trump jacked up tariffs on China, Beijing responded by clamping down on critical mineral exports. Almost 80% of US weaponry depends on Chinese critical minerals. China now dominates mining and refining of many critical minerals. Beijing controls 90% of the world's rare earth refining, 80% of lithium refining and 68% of nickel refining. The US and other nations are belatedly trying to catch up. Mining has long been a major Australian industry, particularly iron ore and coal. But Australia has huge reserves of many critical minerals, producing the largest volume of lithium ore in the world as well as stocks of cobalt, manganese, rutile and others. Australian miners Lynas and Australian Strategic Materials are two of the few rare-earth mining companies not owned by China. That's where this strategic reserve comes in. If it comes to fruition, the federal government would buy agreed volumes of critical minerals from commercial projects or establish an option to purchase them at a given price. It would then keep stockpiles of these key minerals to prevent market manipulation by China and stabilise prices by releasing or holding stocks strategically. The reserve would give Canberra more leverage in negotiating with trading partners and enable a rapid response to supply disruptions. Government backing for the industry would boost onshore processing, scale up domestic production and encourage more high-wage, high-skill jobs in regional areas. Which minerals will be stockpiled? That's yet to be determined. The list of 'critical minerals' can vary between countries, and a mineral critical to one nation may not be to another. Australia lists 31 critical minerals while Japan lists 35, the US lists 50 and the European Union 34. Australia's list is unique in that it reflects global demand, not domestic dependency. The minerals most commonly included in these lists include cobalt, gallium, indium, niobium, tantalum, platinum group minerals and rare earth elements. In 2023, major miners produced close to a billion tonnes of iron ore in Western Australia. By contrast, critical mineral volumes are small. For instance, only 610 tonnes of gallium were mined in 2023. Major miners such as Rio Tinto, BHP and Vale don't tend to bother. Critical mineral markets are often opaque and highly concentrated. The barrier to entry is high. Globally, the market for the 31 critical minerals on Australia's list is valued at around A$344 billion (US$219.5 billion) – about the size of the global aluminum market. That leaves it to mid-tier and small miners to bridge the gap between rapidly growing demand and supply. The problem is, raising capital is often very difficult. The price of critical minerals can fluctuate wildly. The price of lithium and nickel have fallen sharply over the last two years due to market oversupply. The strategic reserve would make it easier for these miners by providing access to capital through loans from Export Finance Australia and private investors, reducing financial uncertainty and cost overruns and acting as a buffer against market volatility. For instance, mid-tier miner Illuka Resources is building Australia's first rare earths refinery in Western Australia. The project already has significant government support, but it is likely to need more. Despite Australia's significant mineral resources, it faces an uphill battle to gain market share. China's dominance has been driven by low production costs; low environmental, social, and governance standards; and a competitive labour market. But intensifying geopolitical competition between China and the US means Australian minerals would likely be sought by the US. In volatile market conditions, cheaper operations have a significant advantage, while new mines face an uphill battle. Australia's critical minerals hub framework could help offset capital costs. Smaller miners could form cooperatives to share infrastructure and manage logistics, processing and access to international markets. Sharing infrastructure such as roads, rail, energy and ports would reduce the investment risk. There are other challenges to overcome, such as the long lead times of 10 years or more to go from discovery to production, limited access to low-cost renewable energy and a shortage of technical and scientific capabilities. Labor's strategic reserve would help. But it won't be enough to make Australia into a critical mineral giant. The government should consider: building more regional processing hubs with shared infrastructure and microgrids offering royalty exemptions, tax incentives and energy subsidies early on giving incentives to retrofit facilities to produce critical minerals found alongside main ores, such as cobalt found alongside copper and antimony with gold encouraging models where rare earths are concentrated in Australia and processed overseas in partner countries establishing Centers of Excellence on critical minerals and creating shared libraries of intellectual property to support research, avoid duplication and optimize resource allocation. Overall, the proposed reserve is an excellent idea. Government intervention will be necessary to absorb and mitigate risks from price fluctuations and geopolitical shocks. Mohan Yellishetty, Professor, Co-Founder, Critical Minerals Consortium, and Australia-India Critical Minerals Research Hub, Monash University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
