India has reached out to key critical mineral producers to bring in processing technology into the country, officials said. The move comes close on the back of the government rolling out auctions of critical mineral mines.
“Talks are on with the United States (US), Australia, and United Kingdom (UK), South Korea, and Japan for processing technology. Brazil and Argentina are also positive about collaborating with India,” a senior mines ministry official told ET.
According to another official aware of the plan, agreements with countries are being lined up and will soon be signed.
While India is going ahead with auction of mines holding critical minerals, there are no facilities for their beneficiation.
“We want to target India’s first critical mineral beneficiation and processing plant in the next 3-5 years,” the official quoted above said. “We want to ensure that development of critical mineral processing and extraction happen in parallel.”
Beneficiation is a process used to raise the grade of an ore by removing unwanted minerals.
According to a Niti Aayog estimate, India’s advanced chemistry cell manufacturing industry annually needs 193 thousand tons of cathode active material to produce 100 GW hour annum of batteries by 2030. Critical minerals and their active materials used in the production of lithium-ion batteries (LIB) account for approximately 33%-48% of the overall pack cost.
The Centre of Excellence under the mines ministry is also preparing the strategy to accelerate the development of critical mineral mining, processing, manufacturing, and recycling.
Critical minerals such as cobalt, graphite, lithium, and rare earth elements (REE) are key for manufacturing components of electric vehicles (EVs) and used in new age developments for defence, agriculture, energy, pharmaceutical, and telecom, among other, sectors.
In June 2023, India for the first time defined its own list of 30 critical minerals. India’s list of 30 critical minerals included copper, glauconite, nickel, chromium and platinum group elements (PGE), Potash, and Molybdenum among others.
