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Ambassador Gabriele Visentin

EU Ambassador urges Australia to make investment easier

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Reuters is reporting that the EU Ambassador in Australia, speaking at the Minerals Week Conference in Canberra, Australia, urged the country to make foreign financial investment simpler. Ambassador Gabriele Visentin said EU financial investment in Australia was already big, and the bloc aspired to grow the level of investment, especially when it comes to investing in the sourcing of critical raw materials, such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.

As we know in the German Australia Business Council, Australia is abundant in critical minerals. These are particularly important for the transition to cleaner energy. Currently, China has a dominant position in the supply of those materials.

In May 2024, the EU and Australia signed a memorandum of understanding to comply more carefully crucial and strategic minerals as the EU tries to diversify its providers away from China and Russia and change its economy to reduce carbon emissions.

Australia and the EU have been negotiating a free trade agreement since 2018, although a deal remains elusive. Talks, however, were halted last October after Australia rejected an offer which did not sufficiently open European farming markets for Australian exports.

Mining

Australian critical minerals projects in the global spotlight

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The Australian Government has launched a new digital Critical Minerals Prospectus, showcasing more than 55 investment-ready projects to potential investors and buyers from around the world. The digital Prospectus features an interactive online map, shining a spotlight on the investment-ready projects across Australia’s critical minerals landscape.

The tool can be customised to navigate Australia’s rich and diverse mineral endowment, and a range of available government support, including potential funding for Australian critical minerals projects. Australia has an abundance of critical minerals needed to build essential components, for things like electric vehicles, solar panels, hydrogen technology and batteries.

The Government is also incentivising investment in critical minerals projects through a range of programs, including the $4 billion Critical Minerals Facility and the recently announced $7 billion Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive.

The interactive Australian Critical Minerals Prospectus is available here.

Speaking at the launch, the Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farrell, highlighted that “Australia is ready and willing to meet the growing global demand for critical minerals, and we welcome international investment in key projects across the country. The new online Prospectus shines a spotlight on over 55 investor-ready projects which will attract the investment we need to build new industries, create more jobs, and become a renewable energy superpower.” The Minister for Resources, Madeleine King, added “Critical minerals are vital for the global efforts to reduce emissions and becoming increasingly important inputs for the defence industry. Australia’s resources industry has been developed with foreign investment, and we need overseas investment to build our critical minerals industry”

Australia – not (yet) a powerhouse for critical raw materials

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The Economist in a recent article reports that Australia, despite its rich reserves of critical minerals like lithium and rare earths, faces major challenges in becoming a global powerhouse for supplying critical raw materials, required by industry in the transition to net zero.

Key obstacles highlighted in the article include the current dominance of China in refining and processing the materials. Australia currently relies on the export of materials and has not yet fully developed its own processing capabilities. The article concludes that there is also a need for more investment in infrastructure.

For more details, you can read the full article here.

Madeleine King

Australian Minister for Resources, Madeleine King, in Europe

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Australian Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Madeleine King, is currently in Europe to promote Australia as a reliable supplier of critical minerals to support global efforts to reach net-zero.  Minister King will hold bilateral talks with ministerial counterparts from Germany, the EU, France and the UK, and will participate in the inaugural International Energy Agency (IEA) Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Summit on September 28 in Paris.

Talks will involve industry representatives from across Europe and the UK, including Europe’s automotive industry, which will need more critical minerals to manufacture electric vehicles.

“Australia has the critical minerals the world needs to help lower emissions, and we have well-established export supply chains built over decades through our iron ore and gas industries,” Minister King said.

“Australia’s resources sector also has high environmental and social governance standards (ESG), and a global reputation as a stable and reliable export partner.

“I released Australia’s new Critical Minerals Strategy in June, which lays out Australia’s support for the industry and our plan to become a globally significant supplier of critical minerals by 2030.”

The visit to Europe and the UK will be a chance to outline how Australia is working with the sector and cooperating with international partners to diversify global supply chains and support investment in the mining and processing of key critical minerals.

“The world’s clean energy transition will ride on the back of Australia’s critical minerals,” Minister King said.

“Critical minerals are crucial components of clean energy technologies such as batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage, as well as for wind farms and solar panels.”

Australia is the world’s leading producer of unprocessed lithium, the world’s third-largest cobalt exporter and the fourth-largest exporter of rare earths. Australia is also the fourth-largest exporter of mined copper and nickel and a significant producer of aluminium.

Mining Excavator

Australian Resources Minister welcomes “like-minded” foreign investors for Critical Minerals Projects

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ExcavatorSpeaking in Darwin, Madeleine King, Australia’s Resources Minister, has reportedly said that Australia will be welcoming “like-minded” investors to invest in critical minerals projects, according to the Australian Financial Review.

The report continues that Minister King did not flag any ban on Chinese investment into the industry, but as the AFR continues, Australian Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has already indicated that the country would be more assertive in ensuring that investment from abroad into critical minerals projects would be aligned with Australia’s national interest. He has already acted by preventing a major supplier of minerals from China from taking a bigger stake in one company.

At the German Australian Business Council, we are monitoring these developments closely. The recent visit by a German delegation to Australia and the forthcoming European Critical Raw Materials Act will provide an excellent opportunity to deepen relations between our countries.

Australia and Germany to collaborate on critical minerals study

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Australia and Germany will work together to create new opportunities for critical minerals projects in order to meet climate and energy targets. Australian Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King signed a joint Declaration of Intent with Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Dr Franziska Brantner, in Perth on Thursday, 6th April 2023.

The Declaration will support a joint study to help Australia meet its ambitions to develop value-added industries around critical minerals, from extraction, refinement and recycling, and to help Germany secure reliable supplies of critical minerals to underpin its manufacturing and recycling activities.

“Both Australia and Germany recognise the important opportunity we have to build diverse, resilient and sustainable critical minerals value chains,” Minister King said. “Australia has vast reserves of critical minerals, which are essential components for clean-energy technologies such as electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. Both countries have complementary climate, energy and strategic ambitions. The Declaration of Intent with Germany will help us understand which critical minerals are most important to support Germany’s industries and how Australia can be a partner of choice in meeting these needs.”

Minister King will later this year release Australia’s new Critical Minerals Strategy, which will help grow the sector and reflect the important role critical minerals can play in Australia’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050.

 

Press Release Australian Department of Industry, Science and Resources

European Union introduces draft Critical Raw Materials Act

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The European Commission proposed on 16 March a comprehensive set of actions to ensure Europe’s access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials. The critical raw materials are indispensable for a wide set of strategic sectors, including the net-zero industry, the digital industry, aerospace, and defence sectors.

Currently, Europe heavily relies on imports from many countries (including Australia) and often from quasi-monopolistic third-country suppliers. The aim of the action plan is to mitigate the risks for supply chains related to such strategic dependencies to enhance Europe’s economic resilience, as highlighted by shortages in the aftermath of Covid-19 and the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Regulation and Communication on critical raw materials leverage the strengths and opportunities of the European Single Market and the EU’s external partnerships with countries, such as Australia, to diversify and enhance the resilience of EU critical raw material supply chains. The Critical Raw Materials Act will also improve the capacity to monitor and mitigate risks of disruptions and enhances circularity and sustainability.

The Act sets out clear priorities for action: In addition to an updated list of critical raw materials, the Act identifies a list of strategic raw materials, which are crucial to technologies important to Europe’s green and digital ambitions and for defence and space applications, while being subject to potential supply risks in the future. The Regulation embeds both the critical and strategic raw materials lists in EU law.

The Regulation also sets clear benchmarks for domestic capacities along the strategic raw material supply chain and to diversify EU supply by 2030:

  • At least 10% of the EU’s annual consumption for extraction,
  • At least 40% of the EU’s annual consumption for processing,
  • At least 15% of the EU’s annual consumption for recycling,
  • Not more than 65% of the Union’s annual consumption of each strategic raw material at any relevant stage of processing from a single third country.

Creating secure and resilient EU critical raw materials supply chains: The Act will reduce the administrative burden and simplify permitting procedures for critical raw materials projects in the EU. In addition, selected Strategic Projects will benefit from support for access to finance and shorter permitting timeframes (24 months for extraction permits and 12 months for processing and recycling permits). Member States will also have to develop national programmes for exploring geological resources.

Ensuring that the EU can mitigate supply risks: To ensure the resilience of the supply chains, the Act provides for the monitoring of critical raw materials supply chains, and the coordination of strategic raw materials stocks among Member States. Certain large companies will have to perform an audit of their strategic raw materials supply chains, comprising a company-level stress test.

Investing in research, innovation and skills: The Commission will strengthen the uptake and deployment of breakthrough technologies in critical raw materials. Furthermore, the establishment of a large-scale skills partnership on critical raw materials and of a Raw Materials Academy will promote skills relevant to the workforce in critical raw materials supply chains. Externally, the Global Gateway will be used as a vehicle to assist partner countries in developing their own extraction and processing capacities, including skills development.

Protecting the environment by improving circularity and sustainability of critical raw materials: Improved security and affordability of critical raw materials supplies must go hand in hand with increased efforts to mitigate any adverse impacts, both within the EU and in third countries, with respect to labour rights, human rights and environmental protection. Efforts to improve the sustainable development of critical raw materials value chains will also help promote economic development in third countries and also sustainability governance, human rights, conflict resolution and regional stability.

European countries will also be expected to adopt and implement national measures to improve the collection of critical raw materials rich waste and ensure its recycling into secondary critical raw materials. European countries and private operators will have to investigate the potential for recovery of critical raw materials from extractive waste in current mining activities but also from historical mining waste sites. Products containing permanent magnets will need to meet circularity requirements and provide information on recyclability and recycled content.

International Engagement

Diversifying the Union’s imports of critical raw materials: The EU will never be self-sufficient in supplying such raw materials, and will continue to rely on imports for a majority of its consumption. International trade is therefore essential to supporting global production and ensuring diversification of supply. The EU will need to strengthen its global engagement with reliable partners to develop and diversify investment and promote stability in international trade and strengthen legal certainty for investors. In particular, the EU will seek mutually beneficial partnerships with emerging markets and developing economies, notably in the framework of its Global Gateway strategy.

The EU will step up trade actions, including establishing a Critical Raw Materials Club for all like-minded countries willing to strengthen global supply chains, strengthening the World Trade Organization (WTO), expanding its network of Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreements and Free Trade Agreements and pushing harder on enforcement to combat unfair trade practices.

It will further develop Strategic partnerships: The EU will work with reliable partners to promote their own economic development sustainably through value chain creation in their own countries, while also promoting secure, resilient, affordable and sufficiently diversified value chains for the EU.

Next Steps

The proposed Regulation will be discussed and agreed by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union before its adoption and entry into force.

The German Australian Business Council will monitor the progress of the act.

Mining LandscapeDominik Vanyi on unsplash.com

Critical Raw Materials

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The Economist magazine reports on the supply of critical raw materials, such as lithium, aluminium and cobalt. Many of these are supplied by countries with unstable governments, such as the Congo, or subject to sanctions, such as Russia.

Over the past few years, mineral resources have been discovered and increasingly exploited in Australia. The country is now becoming one of the suppliers of critical raw materials to industry in Europe, as the Economist highlights.

At the German Australian Business Council, we encourage the development of business relations on both sides of the globes, and we see the supply of critical raw materials as an important factor in strengthening the relations between our two countries.

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