India, Australia boost critical minerals partnership to secure battery supply chains, cut China’s dominance
Last Updated on September 24, 2025 7:56 pm
New Delhi [India], September 23 (ANI): Counsellor Energy & Resources at the Australian High Commission, Sanjiva de Silva, highlighted the growing collaboration between India and Australia in the critical minerals sector, emphasising efforts to strengthen battery supply chains and support the global energy transition.
“The Australian and Indian governments have been working for the last three years to combine forces to find projects in Australia that meet the needs of the Indian industry. That process was led on the Indian side by a consortium called KABIL and on the Australian side within the Critical Minerals Office within our Department of Industry,” de Silva said.
He noted that both governments had already made significant progress in advancing these initiatives. “We have identified those projects, and the Indian side has done a fantastic job in advancing to the final stages of the competitive processes for these major investments,” he added.
Building on this progress, de Silva underlined the broader strategic objective of ensuring secure and diversified supply chains. “Whether through this process or through the business-to-business collaboration that Australia has, it is crucial to consider the new battery supply chains that countries can secure offtake for. At the moment, it is very commonly known that China dominates a lot of that offtake market. What we are trying to do through the collaboration between the Australian and Indian governments is to position India to have access to some of that offtake,” he stressed.
Highlighting Australia’s global standing in this field, he said, “Australia exports about half the world’s lithium, so we are a superpower in the critical mineral space. Australia stands ready to work with our like-minded trading partners to diversify and to deepen critical minerals supply chains so that countries can make the batteries and the solar panels and the magnets that are needed to drive the energy transition.”