Lithium Valley Main Report 2018
5.2 EU and Western Australia Supply Agreements The EU seeks to ensure the supply of identified Critical Raw Materials. Western Australia can provide these materials and much more. Not only is WA a reliable supplier from a neutral country, WA has strong environmental laws that are consistent with EU principles. A potential win-win deal for both parties could be: 1. A strategic materials supply arrangement to the EU in accordance with World Trade Organization rules. 2. Additional high technology manufacturing plants based in Western Australia supporting EU companies where energy costs are lower, quality is high and environmental standards are comparable. 3. An exclusive, long-term agreement to reprocess all of the EU e-waste, including batteries, potentially for up to 50 years. This could be facilitated between the respective governments, which is the approach proposed by the Indian Government. 5.3 Western Australia as the Preferred Supplier of Strategic Resources WA is endowed with enviable economic reserves of most of the materials required for this new energy transformation. According to research compiled for this report, WA currently supplies 44% of the world’s lithium, 5% of the world’s cobalt, 14% of manganese, 16% of alumina, 9% of nickel, and 5% of copper. Not only is WA already a leading supplier to current markets, but WA also has substantial reserves of most of the critical materials to be a key global supplier in the future (Figure 16, Figure 17 , Figure 18). "The European Commission has identified 27 critical raw materials. Western Australia has significant commercial reserves to supply almost all of them and yet WA's current contribution to world supply is considered negligible. WA has an outstanding opportunity to become "If cobalt falls into the hands of the Chinese, yeah you won’t see EVs being produced in Europe etc. They are waking up too late... I think it’s because the car industry has never had a supply chain problem before." Ivan Glasenberg - CEO Glencore told the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland. March 2018 “ the preferred independent supplier of critical raw materials to the EU and the rest of the world." “
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