Fears of a collapse in the nation’s “sovereign capacity” prompted Resources Minister Madeleine King to include the battery metal on the government’s official “critical minerals list”.
Fears of a collapse in the nation’s “sovereign capacity” prompted Ms King on Friday to include nickel on the government’s official critical minerals list, opening the door to miners led by BHP to tap a $4 billion federal loan facility as well as foreign export credits in allied nations such as Japan and Korea.
To become a renewable energy superpower, “the government has to be a partner in this, not just an observer”, Mr Albanese told an audience late on Friday in Newcastle, where the local coal industry is set to become a big loser in the transition.
Long-term “nickel demand will remain”, Ms King said, but a glut of shipments from Indonesia and China combined with faltering demand for EV batteries on the world market meant some of the sector’s smaller miners would be mothballed “until prices do indeed recover a few years down the track”.“We can’t subsidise speculation, but we do need to make sure sovereign capacity is maintained.
“Clearly, there is no single government measure that will provide an immediate fix, but there is definitely a need for intervention,” he said.The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA said the step was positive but “more actions were needed”, including pushing trading partners to back Australia’s higher-priced but cleaner and more ethical critical and battery minerals supplies.
The minister signalled the government was willing to take on the Chinese-owned LME and was enlisting support in the US. Mr Rudd has been active in the talks and is understood to have discussed the plight of the nickel industry with Dr Forrest, who is shutting down his WA nickel mines in May.“That’s going to take a number of months and during that time we will hope to be able to talk to them a bit more fully about what’s possible”.Labor expects the global price to stay relatively low through this year, and probably for several years to come until the surplus of nickel in the market is absorbed.
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