Australian Govt invests $50m in grants for critical minerals & jobs

The Australian Government has invested near $50 million in grants to ramp up the development of critical minerals projects across the nation that will ultimately help lower emissions to meet net-zero commitments by 2050. 

Not only will this significant funding accelerate the development of Australia’s critical minerals sector, but it will also help diversify supply chains as well as build domestic downstream processing while also supporting the creation of new jobs and regional development. 

Under the Critical Minerals Development Program, 13 projects have received funding grants and it includes plans to produce key inputs to lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles as well as support supply chains for advanced manufacturing for aerospace, medical, energy and defence applications. 

“The successful projects will create jobs and opportunities across regional Australia and help Australia realise its ambitions to be a clean-energy superpower. 

“The grants support Australia’s new Critical Minerals Strategy, to be released shortly and which will outline how Australia can capture the significant opportunity of growing its critical minerals processing sector. 

“Australia has remarkable potential to meet the increasing global demand for the critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies, such as electric vehicles and batteries, as the world moves to decarbonise,” Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King said. 

The successful projects are located in: 

Western Australia 

• $5.5 million to Australian Energy Storage Solutions Pty Ltd for a pilot to set up Australia’s first Precursor Cathode Active Material manufacturing plant in Kwinana 
• $4.6 million to IGO Ltd to support its Integrated Battery Material Facility at Kwinana, which will produce high value nickel-cobalt-manganese precursor cathode active material 
• $1.2 million to Tungsten Metals Group Pty Ltd for the production of Ferrotungsten Powders for advanced manufacturing for aerospace, medical, energy and defence products 
• $4.7 million to International Graphite Ltd to support the International Graphite WA Mine to Market Battery Graphite Materials Project 
• $5.9 million to Northern Minerals Ltd to support its Brown Range Heavy Rare Earths Project at Halls Creek 
• $1 million to Tungsten Mining NL to support test work for its Mount Mulgine Tungsten Project 
• $6.25 million to Magnium Australia Pty Ltd to commercialise CSIRO-pantented technology for clean extraction of magnesium metal, and a Magnesium Refinery Pilot Plant in Collie 

“Investment in projects like these will also continue to deliver benefits to local communities and underpin economic growth in regional WA for years to come. 

“It will also create and support a number of jobs while continuing to diversify and strengthen Western Australia’s economy,” State Development, Jobs and Trade Minister Roger Cook said. 

“This commitment by the Federal Government, alongside significant investment by the State Government enables the development of a world-class, value-adding critical minerals downstream processing industry that fuels both global and national decarbonisation efforts,” Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston said. 

New South Wales 

• $6.5 million to Australian Strategic Materials Ltd for its Dubbo Project, to support mining, separation and refining, and production facility for critical minerals including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, zirconium, niobium, and hafnium 
• $2.0 million to Clareville Pty Ltd for testing and scale up on its novel flotation separation additive which increases recovery of key critical minerals, such as lithium, cobalt and vanadium, by 50 per cent – with no increase in carbon emissions or environmental impacts 
• $2.9 million to Ecograf Ltd to support a graphite qualification facility at Lucas Heights 

Queensland 

• $5 million to Queensland Pacific Metals Ltd for the engineering and design for phase 1 of a full-scale refinery for its Townsville Energy Chemicals Hub 
• $1.2 million to High Purity Quartz Ltd to support a pre-feasibility study for a project to build a solar PV grate quartz sand processing facility and a silicon metal production facility to establish solar PV cell manufacturing in Townsville 
• $2.2 million to Evolution Mining Ltd to support Ernest Henry Operations to retrieve cobalt from mine waste 

Source: Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia; Australian Government – Business; Government of Western Australia – Media Statements; Australian Mining