The growing importance of critical minerals worldwide requires that advanced economies are increasingly equipped to use them. That means they need both the initial supply and the means of processing them.

In the UK, the capacity to process critical minerals is substantial and growing, with the first lithium processing plant due to come on stream in the Tees Freeport in the next couple of years.

Concerns Over Chinese Mineral Dominance

Plants like this are particularly important because, to date, China has dominated this industry and there have been fears that the country could use its advantage as a means of geopolitical leverage.  

However, while other countries can offer contract processing services, they also need the materials and China has been seeking to dominate in this area as well.

As an article in Desert News recently reflected, this threat and the geopolitical implications remain a major concern, with China imposing export restrictions on some vital materials and threatening further restrictions in retaliation for US trade tariffs and actions over copyright breaches.

The UK-Indonesia Deal

It is for that reason that deals between other countries on rare earth mineral supplies are crucial, one of which has just been signed by the UK and Indonesia, the latter having some of the richest mineral resources in the world.

While some of this was about Indonesia’s own economic development and shift from a coal-reliant energy sector to renewables, as well as some issues other than energy, a critical issue for the UK is access to rare earths that are abundant in the south-east Asian archipelago.

As Reuters notes, the UK is not alone in seeking a critical minerals partnership with Indonesia, with the US having done likewise. While lithium is not on the list, minerals like tin, copper, bauxite and nickel ore are. Indeed, Indonesia has the richest deposits of nickel in the world.

Britain’s development minister Annelise Dodds said the partnership “puts both countries as key players in the critical minerals supply chain.” 

This deal is, therefore, an important part of the equation in securing critical minerals without having to dance to China’s tune, but it is far from the only one. Just as the US was also interested in Indonesia, so Canada is taking its own steps to address the problem.

Domestic Supplies From Canada To Cornwall

As the Financial Times reports, Canada is opening its own critical mineral processing facility to end reliance on China, with agreements in place to import minerals from countries such as Australia, Brazil and Vietnam, which will keep it well supplied until Canada has established mines to extract its own copious mineral resources.

As the second largest country by area in the world, Canada is bound to have very substantial mineral resources. This is hardly the case in the UK, although the lithium deposits found in Cornwall are some of the richest in the world.

Even when firms like Cornish Lithium and Weardale Lithium in County Durham are at maximum capacity (both expect to be producing up to 10,000 tonnes a year), this will not meet Britain’s full needs. For this reason, the lithium processing plants by the Tees will be conveniently located for the ships arriving laden with unrefined lithium from elsewhere.

Like Canada, the UK will have some friendly countries to rely on, not least Australia. Indeed, Tees Valley Lithium, which is building one of the Tees Port refineries and is set to be supplied by Weardale Lithium, is also building a processing plant in Western Australia.

Making Rare Earths Processing Greener

There is, of course, an environmental downside to all this; the carbon footprint of shipping minerals from the other side of the world is a significant issue, although that relates to a wider issue that the global shipping industry needs to address.

However, it does mean that it can be processed in plants run on green energy, such as the Green Lithium facility, which will mostly be powered by nearby wind farms in the North Sea, in contrast with some of the coal-powered plants in China, a country that now produces more emissions than the entire western hemisphere.

Whether that is something China addresses properly is beyond the rest of the world to control, although such excesses come with dire urban pollution. But as Western countries like the UK hope to eliminate vehicle emissions as well as other sources of carbon, the secure supply of lithium and many other materials remains vital.

For that reason, just as the government can be expected to reach more agreements with various countries over mineral supplies and also support domestic sources where they exist, so it can be expected that the processing capacity will continue to ramp up, making reliance on Chinese supplies and processing a thing of the past.