Media

With the world racing ahead with huge subsidies attracting massive capital inflows, the $500m commitment in the new federal Critical Minerals Strategy released this week is a drop in the ocean, and fails to take advantage of Australia’s unique position in the energy transition as a potential critical minerals value-adding superpower. Read more

Australia has the potential to secure its position as a world leader in value-added critical minerals supply that underpins the energy transition. However, while the new Australian Critical Minerals Strategy 2023-2030 released by the federal government this week rightly foregrounds leveraging international supply and value chain partnerships, the new funding of $500m to NAIF fails to invest in Australia’s minerals boom at a scale commensurate with the opportunity – and is an inadequate response to the capital investments of our partners and competitors in the global decarbonisation race, such as the US IRA. Read more

Tim Buckley breaks down the statement by AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman today that we are not moving fast enough on decarbonisation of the grid; and speaks to the federal government’s Critical Minerals Strategy released today that announced a $500m commitment to minerals processing – a disappointing underinvestment in Australia’s once in a century opportunity to leverage our massive reserves and lead globally on value-added energy transition materials. Read more

Tim Buckley said he is “not surprised” to see a mining company continue its business in Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine. “It’s all about the money. In the coal industry in a good year, you can make a fortune. China doesn’t want to be dependent on Australia’s coal. We are 55 per cent of the world’s coking coal export. Therefore, China will happily buy from Russia.” Read more

Tim Buckley writes that it’s about time NSW reflected QLD’s progressive coal royalty regime which has just delivered a stunning dividend to the people of the state. Read more

Nishtha Aggarwal & Tim Buckley: There is plenty of room to remain skeptical, but we may be witnessing an important capital shift that signals the end of fossil fuel climate denialism. Read more