Australia’s Mineral Criticality assessment

Last updated:15 October 2024

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As part of the Australian Critical Minerals Research and Development Hub, Geoscience Australia is leading the mineral criticality assessment, which is examining Australia's mineral export and import vulnerabilities, and the extent to which minerals are critical for Australia's economy, future sovereign capabilities, and security.

Why are we doing this assessment?

This project will build an enduring mineral criticality assessment capability at Geoscience Australia to support evidence-based government decision making and inform Australian strategic policy on critical minerals.

For each critical mineral, the import and export vulnerabilities and the significance of that mineral to Australia is important to determine its criticality for Australia.

Minerals assessed as having ‘high’ export criticality tended to be exported to highly concentrated global markets and have a relatively high trade risk within that market. Import criticality is assessed similarly, that is the mineral supplier market is concentrated, and those suppliers have high trade risk and is offset by Australia’s domestic production capability.

As per caption

Periodic table of Australia’s Critical Minerals and Strategic Materials

What are we doing?

As part of this project Geoscience Australia is:

  • Developing a methodology to assess mineral criticality using publicly available data.
  • Building an internal capability, which includes forecasting and policy levers, to facilitate reporting on criticality and scenario modelling.
  • Developing additional indicators to examine composition of the global minerals market and highlight emerging risks to Australia’s mineral export economy.

What is Geoscience Australia’s goal?

Our goal is that this mineral criticality assessment will support government decision-making by providing an evidence-base which can inform Australian strategic policy to secure Australia’s critical mineral supply. With relevance to international partnerships, trade, and domestic policy.

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