Australia may speed tax breaks for critical minerals refining

Australia may bring forward planned tax incentives for critical minerals refining after a major lithium producer said it would be shutting half of its processing capacity in the country.

Albemarle Corp. announced that it would place one of the two processing trains at its Kemerton plant in Western Australia in “care and maintenance,” and would scrap construction of a planned third one. The decisions would result in the loss of 300 jobs, it said.

Resources Minister Madeleine King said in response that the government would look at speeding up the introduction of tax incentives worth A$8.8 billion ($5.7 billion) for the processing and refining of critical minerals. The measures were announced in this year’s budget and were scheduled to start in the 2027-28 financial year.

“We’re going to look into bringing it forward,” King said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday, while acknowledging it may not have helped Albemarle.

The US company, the world’s biggest lithium producer, has been hit by a slump in prices of the battery metal, caused by a supply glut and slower-than-expected sales growth for electric vehicles. The downturn has complicated efforts by the US and its allies to reduce reliance on Chinese output by building their own supply chains.

King said that she would be holding conversations with other mining companies in Australia to encourage them to stick to their critical minerals investment plans.

“I’m going to keep talking to them about what they can do to work with the production tax incentive to bring on more lithium processing here in this country,” she told the ABC.

(By Ben Westcott)

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