Bush Summit: Don’t pick mining winners, industry warns
The critical minerals sector has been pressuring the federal government for additional processing support after a sharp fall in prices.
Miners have called for the development of strategic common-use infrastructure in the Pilbara as Australia seeks to develop a major critical minerals processing industry.
The mining sector has been pressuring the federal government for additional support for nickel, lithium and other critical minerals processing, after a fall in pricing and sharp cost inflation reduced momentum in the sector.
The Albanese government has introduced a production tax credit valued at over $7bn over the next decade, a stimulus it hopes will deliver a major boost to the fast-growing industry. However, industry players said the infrastructure required to deliver on the promise must also be part of the conversation.
“We know for our critical minerals, we need that investment in the strategic industrial land parks and in the common use infrastructure,” Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia chief executive Rebecca Tomkinson told The Australian’s Bush Summit on Friday.
“Some of the capital costs to start the projects are significant, and they come at an impact to the overall project.”
The head of Darwin-based critical minerals company, Tivan, which is focused on development of vanadium and fluorite projects in Australia, says developers needed to ensure projects had a viable market to sell to before they went into development.
Tivan executive chair Grant Wilson said the company was focused on finding product markets within easy reach of Australia.
“If you want to run a business, you’ve got to sell stuff,” Mr Wilson said. “So you’ve got to understand China, understand Japan, understand Korea, understand any of the places we can ship to at low rates.
“In our case, I can proudly share that we signed a landmark agreement with Sumitomo Corporation of Japan in June.
“As a small, medium, soon to be large company, we have a project financing path.
“Without financing, the rocks will stay in the ground.
“People need to invert the model in critical minerals. It’s not a matter of going out there, finding stuff and trying to sell it. You need to sell it first.”
The Tivan boss said governments should not be picking winners as they look to turbocharge the critical minerals industry.
“We see a little bit of that in rare earths, attempting to support specific projects. It’s dangerous. It’s a race to the bottom. It distorts incentives for other projects and the market is better at doing that. That’s just the reality of it,” Mr Wilson said.
Ms Tomkinson said streamlined environmental and regulatory approvals would also help boost the sector.
“We need to have environmental policy that is consulted with industry and works alongside industry and accelerates our approvals and doesn’t slow us down,” she told the summit.
“We have policies that don’t seem to prefer single groups over the long consultation and make decisions for single entities over the extensive consultation processes that have been undertaken as part of that approvals process. So we need to double down on the policy settings and not put a handbrake on the opportunity in critical minerals.”
Critical minerals processing will attract a general subsidy of 10 per cent of the cost of processing and refining critical minerals but not the mining costs, with the subsidy largely targeting new projects requiring an investment decision by 2030.
Industry experts have previously called for policymakers to back regional minerals processing hubs, streamline project approvals and try to attract the world’s biggest battery makers to boost advanced manufacturing.
Building processing centres near major mining hubs in the Pilbara or other regional centres would eliminate the cost of transporting ore or concentrate over long distances, making Australian manufacturing more competitive, industry players have previously said.
