Critical minerals: Global challenge to China dominance gains pace

Last week, Ukraine and the United States signed a deal to mine rare earths containing critical minerals in Ukraine. President Trump signed an executive order for deep sea mining in international ocean-beds to explore rare earths. The race for challenging China’s dominance of critical minerals that are in short supply has gathered pace. 

Critical minerals/metals like cobalt, graphite, lithium, gallium, germanium, antimony, beryllium etc. are required in making mobile phones, solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, aerospace, electronics and other clean energy equipment. China has 44 per cent of the known rare earth deposits that contain such critical minerals and 90 per cent of global capacity for extracting such critical minerals/metals. Last month, China restricted export of critical minerals/metals disrupting supply chains and production schedules of the user industries around the world. That has got the other countries worried and spurred them to enhance their own capabilities. International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that demand is likely to go up by 2040 from 2020 for lithium by 42 times, cobalt by 22 times, nickel by 20 times and rare earth minerals/metals by 7 times. 15 countries account for about 95 per cent of minerals but only 3 countries account for processing of 98 per cent of lithium, 65 per cent of nickel, 90 per cent of cobalt and 100 per cent other rare earth minerals. 

India is dependent on imports for a range of critical minerals/metals including lithium, vanadium, niobium, germanium, rhenium, beryllium, tantalum, and strontium. In 2023-24, India imported 82.26 mts of such minerals/metals valued at ₹1,396 crore. Last year, our government announced ‘critical mineral mission’ for domestic production, recycling and overseas acquisition of critical mineral assets and eliminated import duties on 25 critical minerals/metals. 

  Government has auctioned 24 blocks for mining 24 critical and strategic minerals and is setting up ‘centers of excellence’ for geo-scientific research and skill building. It aims to ensure security in 30 critical minerals, through enhanced domestic capacity, resilient mineral earth supply chain, private sector participation in low carbon mineral exploration, and recycling of used products for minerals/metal extraction. India is trying to partner with some other countries for steady supply of feedstock. 

The chief of Indian Rare Earth Ltd says that there are 12-15 processing stages from explorations of rare earths to the stage of making available processed minerals/metals but in many cases, India has not gone beyond the 7th stage. So, a strong focus is now on extracting metals from used catalysts and batteries and other electronic waste. The IEA says that recycling mitigates the environmental and social impacts related to mining and refining while preventing waste from end-use technologies ending up in landfills and that recycling minerals cause 80 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than from mining. 

Last Thursday, the Gujarat Chief Minister inaugurated a state-of-the-art facility of Rubamin Pvt. Ltd., a 40-year-old company with experience in hydro metallurgy technology for extraction of critical metals and a team of 35 scientists engaged in research and development. It extracts 9 critical metals from over 50,000 mts of waste from used catalysts and batteries through processes that involve zero landfill waste and zero liquid discharge. Some start ups are also engaged in e-waste and lithium recycling processes. For extraction of other critical minerals/metals, the processing units need tie-up arrangements for assured supply of rare earth primary feedstock from mining companies, says Atul Dalimia, the chief of Rubamin. 

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