The United States and Australia have announced a landmark critical minerals partnership, committing a combined US$8.5 billion to develop mining, separation and processing projects that will create secure, non-China rare earths supply chains.
Watch the full story from the ABC’s The Business programme.
Each nation has pledged at least US$1 billion in the next six months, with the deal targeting rare earths and other critical minerals essential for defence, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.
Australian Strategic Materials (ASM) is well positioned to benefit from the new framework, with MD & CEO Rowena Smith telling ABC News the agreement creates important pathways for projects ready to move forward.
“These government-to-government frameworks are really enabling for us to finalise those investment and offtake discussions,”
Rowena Smith,
speaking to The Business, ABC
ASM’s Dubbo Project in New South Wales is shovel-ready, having completed all necessary technical development, exploration, engineering, and permitting work. The Company is currently in final discussions for investment and offtake agreements, supported by up to US$600 million in potential debt funding from the US Export-Import Bank.
Rowena also highlighted ASM’s mine to metals strategy to build integrated supply chains across jurisdictions, processing rare earths to oxides in Australia before metallising them at existing facilities in Korea, with plans to establish similar capability in the United States.
“What we need to do is build supply chains across jurisdictions. We’ll mine and process here in Australia – that’s the most capital-intensive step – then metallise and alloy before it can be turned into magnets.”
With China controlling more than 90% of global rare earths refining, the US-Australia partnership signals a welcome strategic shift toward diversified, secure supply chains.