Battery metals bosses meet for crisis talks

An urgent meeting between battery metal bosses and politicians must result in measures to reduce costs and improve efficiency to stave off further pain in the embattled sector, the state’s peak resources lobby says.

Nickel and lithium bosses are today converging in Perth’s CBD to thrash out a way to keep Western Australia's battery metals sector above water with Resources Minister Madeleine King and state counterpart David Michael.

The meeting comes after a torrid start to 2024 during which myriad WA nickel and lithium projects have either been scaled back or put on ice, most notably the suspension of First Quantum Minerals’ Ravensthorpe mine and mothballing of Panoramic Resources’ Halls Creek project.

Shares in battery metal market darlings Chalice Mining and Liontown Resources have also collapsed.

Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA chief executive Rebecca Tomkinson said efficiency, timeliness and certainty of approvals remained a key stumbling block hampering Australia’s competitiveness on the world stage.

“Targeted and evidence-based government support for the nickel and lithium sectors in the near-term makes sense given the significance of these industries to local employment, the economy and our national strategic interests,” she said.

“We have said before that deferred royalty payments would likely be the most commercially impactful and administratively simple support measure the WA government could enact. This should be considered in the immediate term alongside possible measures at a federal level such as a production tax credit.

“At today’s roundtables, we’ll be articulating a range of initiatives that the state and federal governments can implement to keep the WA resources sector consistently competitive across all the commodities we produce.”

Ms Tomkinson said the federal government held the key to building competitive fiscal settings and industrial relations reforms to boost productivity.

She said initiatives to reduce financing, capital or operating costs such as low-cost funding, capital grants or production tax credits should be considered.

“The Australian government also has an opportunity to work with our trading partners to support the development of price and ESG transparency in critical and battery minerals markets,” Ms Tomkinson said.

“At the state level, the provision of turnkey strategic industrial areas and other common user infrastructure, including low emissions, reliable and cost-competitive energy, can drive economies of scale and reduce operating costs.”

Ms King last week told Business News she did not believe Australia had struck the right balance between reducing costs and ensuring high standards.

“The fact that we mine and process our nickel and do the further refining to nickel sulphide in a responsible manner is really important,” she said.

 “How you make that appear as a premium is … complicated.

“It is something we're looking at.

“I don't want to promise anything on that, but I do acknowledge the concerns here.”