INDUSTRY OUTLOOK
FEEDING THE GREEN TRANSFORMATION WITH DEVELOPERS ASKING OF MORE BATTERY MATERIALS THAN EVER BEFORE, AUSTRALIA HAS A CRITICAL ROLE TO PLAY IN ENSURING THE WORLD’S GREEN REVOLUTION REACHES ITS DESTINATION.
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ustralia is in the box seat when it comes to capitalising on the renewable energy transition, with the country’s upstream capability not solely rooted in commodities such as iron ore and gold. Australia has some of the world’s richest resources of battery materials and leads the pack when it comes to lithium production and exports. Spodumene concentrate is Australia’s primary lithium resource, which international customers convert into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide to be used in batteries. The Greenbushes lithium mine in Western Australia, owned by a three-way joint venture of IGO and Tianqi Lithium Corporation (51 per cent) and Albemarle Corporation (49 per cent), has an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of spodumene. Once Pilbara Minerals has ramped up its Ngungaju plant and completed
improvements on its Pilgan plant at the Pilgangoora lithium operation in WA, the company hopes to be producing 580,000 Mtpa of spodumene by the middle of 2022. Nickel is a sought-after resource in electrification, as it can improve the energy density and storage capacity of electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Australia has a number of established nickel producers, including BHP’s Nickel West operation, IGO’s Nova operation and Glencore’s Murrin Murrin mine in WA. According to the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources’ Resources and Energy Quarterly December 2021, Australia’s annual nickel exports amounted to 181,000 tonnes in the 2020–21 financial year. This is a significant figure, but considering Australia has the world’s largest nickel reserves of an estimated 19 million tonnes, the country has barely scratched the surface of its potential. Nickel development projects
in Australia include Panoramic Resources’ Savannah nickel project in WA, which delivered its first shipment of nickel-copper-cobalt concentrate in December 2021. Western Areas’ Odysseus mine in WA produced first nickel ore in October 2021, and after completing construction of its concentrator complex the company aims to produce first concentrate in the December quarter of 2022. By that time, the mine will be under the control of IGO after the major miner bought Western Areas for $1.096 billion in December 2021. IGO hopes to complete the transaction in April 2022. Queensland Pacific Metals (QPM) is a future producer of green nickel, cobalt, high-purity alumina and other by-products through its TECH Project. The TECH Project is slightly different to the average pit-to-port operation in that it will import highgrade ore from New Caledonia to be processed in its Townsville plant. QPM updated the TECH Project’s
DRILLING AT COBALT BLUE’S BROKEN HILL PROJECT. AUSTRALIANMINING
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life cycle assessment in November 2021, which suggested it will be the first ever battery-grade nickel manufacturing plant that’s not only carbon-neutral, but carbon-negative. QPM will look to achieve this goal through a gas-sourcing strategy that will see it repurpose greenhouse-intensive waste gas from metallurgical coal mines to power its manufacturing plant. To solidify this, QPM signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Transition Energy Corporation and North Queensland Gas Pipeline in August 2021 to establish a dedicated gas supply chain from the northern Bowen Basin to the TECH Project. The TECH Project is estimated to require 10 petajoules of gas per annum once in steadystate operation. QPM managing director and chief executive officer Stephen Grocott said the TECH Project was built with sustainability front of mind. “Gaining recognition for our sustainability credentials is very
