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In a bid to secure supply, the government of India and Australia would be working to identify companies in Australia in the critical mineral space for acquisition.
“We expect to identify these companies in the next few months. We are willing to offer the opportunities to our private companies after having done due diligence,” said Vivek Bharadwaj, secretary, ministry of mines, government of India. Bharadwaj was speaking on the sidelines of the Global Mining Summit organised by CII in partnership with the ministry of mines and coal.
As part of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries in June 2020, Australia’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources and India’s Ministry of Mines had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on increasing trade, investment and research and development in critical minerals between the two countries.
In the critical minerals space, Australia is the world’s largest producer of lithium and the second largest producer of rare-earth elements. It also has large resources of battery minerals like cobalt and nickel.
Bharadwaj said that there are companies at different levels – in exploration, early stages of finding the mineral or those that have offtake arrangements. But he pointed out that today, the world is such that there is hardly any supply contract available till 2030.
Across the world, countries are looking to secure supply of critical minerals to support a growing demand for clean energy technologies – from wind turbines to electric vehicles.
Bharadwaj said that a team of geologists would be visiting Argentina this month to look for opportunities.
Argentina, it may be mentioned, is one of the top countries with identified lithium resource. Argentina, Bolivia and Chile – referred to as the “lithium triangle” account for about 56 per cent of world lithium resources.
Earlier in his speech, Bharadwaj said that the country’s industry must inculcate strategic thinking going well into the future with a special thrust on innovation to flourish. He emphasised that in order to overcome challenges and develop capabilities, the industry should not shy away from going beyond the borders to acquire niche foreign organisations.
Vedanta group chief executive officer, Sunil Duggal, while addressing the summit, called for deregulation of critical mineral exploration, mining and processing to encourage private participation.
As India is embraced for a massive economic development, particularly for new-age areas like clean energy transition, electric mobility, digital economy, defence manufacturing and space programme, the country will require massive amount of critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, rare earth element, platinum group minerals etc, Duggal pointed out. “India is almost 100 per cent import dependent in these minerals.”
