New opportunities

Emerging opportunities for critical minerals

Critical minerals are essential to the economic development of industrialised countries. These minerals have a range of high-tech applications across a variety of sectors of growing economic and strategic significance, including renewable energy, aerospace, defence technologies, hybrid and electric vehicles and communications technologies.

Forecast demand growth for critical minerals presents an important economic opportunity for NSW. The state has known endowment of 17 of the 24 minerals identified in the Australian Critical Minerals Prospectus 2020, with a number of advanced projects and emerging opportunities for scandium, cobalt, antimony, heavy mineral sands (titanium-zirconium-rare earth elements), magmatic zirconium - rare earth elements, platinum group elements and tungsten.

A table of critical mineral projects and prospects, current at May 2020, is available here. critical minerals

NSW critical mineral projects, August 2020.