Australia hopes to be at the forefront of the green-energy boom, with new lithium processing techniques taking center stage. The world's largest lithium producer, Chinese company Tianqi Lithium has invested in and will operate a 24,000 tpa plant that will produce lithium in Western Australia. Colin Barnett, Premier of the state, stated the new plant is an example of Western Australia's economy evolving naturally towards higher-level, value-adding downstream processing.
While China remains the dominant force in terms of rare earths, [Lynas] has an opportunity to supply the praseodymium and neodymium markets, areas that Professor Dudley Kingsnorth from Curtin-IMCOA, sees as having great risk of being undersupplied in spite of illegal sources in China. Providing it gets off the ground with a ~A$1bn start-up cost, Alkane's Dubbo Zirconia Project in NSW hopes to be Australia's second source of heavy rare earths before 2020.
Australia is now the only country in which Iluka is actively mining. Australia is also Iluka's base for research into innovative solutions to mineral sands mining and processing challenges. David Robb, former CEO, told IM in an interview earlier this year that Iluka expected to spend around $35m
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