Securing global supply chains at CMC2025

As the world progresses towards the global energy transition, the demand for critical minerals continues to grow. Combined with the pressure for increased supply chain diversification, critical minerals are one of the hottest topics in the resources sector.

The Critical Minerals Conference (CMC) returned to Perth from September 2-4 for its third year, delivering unparalleled insight into the rapidly evolving global critical minerals industry.

At the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, CMC2025 addressed the challenges the resources sector is facing amidst unprecedented demand — how does the industry rise to meet them?

With the critical minerals movement gaining momentum worldwide, CMC is the fastest-growing event in AusIMM’s successful portfolio, cementing its strategic importance.

This year, the conversation went to new places, illuminating new opportunities and taking the industry one step closer to the collective goal of net zero emissions.

Covering an extensive scope, the event’s themes explored subjects including mineral economics, geopolitics, the global supply chain, circularity, ESG, discovery and development, new technologies and processing manufacturing.

With high-quality abstracts received from 85 organisations and 14 nations from across the globe, CMC explored the topic of critical minerals in a comprehensive global context.

Future-proofing critical minerals

WA boasts an abundance of globally significant deposits, including lithium, rare earth elements, cobalt and many other minerals used in clean energy technologies. WA is strategically important in the future of critical minerals — underscored by Perth’s selection as the host city for this year’s event.

The WA Government joined AusIMM as CMC2025’s official government partner, promoting WA’s key role in global supply chains.

WA Mines and Petroleum Minister David Michael said the range of issues and topics discussed at the conference was outstanding.

“It’s a terrific example of the collaboration, innovation and leadership needed for one of the most strategically important industries of our time,” he said.

“I’m excited about the future of WA’s critical minerals sector and its role in building a smarter, greener and more diversified economy.”

Delegates gained key insight from featured keynote speakers from across the critical minerals supply chain, including WA Minerals Research Institute (MRIWA) chief executive Nicole Roocke, Geoscience Australia chief executive Melissa Harris, The University of Queensland Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) adjunct professor Ian Satchwell and Vulcan Energy (ASX: VUL) founder and chief executive Francis Wedin.

The conference program featured cutting-edge research specific to critical minerals. With more than 60 technical presentations, delegates gained insight into innovations in extraction and processing technologies, sustainability and collaborative initiatives.

Circularity and critical minerals

Circularity in mining has gained prominence due to its ability to secure supply chains of critical minerals and its potential to close the demand-supply gap.

Circular Economy Asia founder and chief executive Adrienna Zsakay delivered a compelling call to action in her keynote, A circular system for metals and mining, which discussed strategies for improving environmental and energy efficiency, focusing on the reprocessing of critical minerals.

“Circularity is becoming a core strategy for the foundations of long-term value creation, because what’s happening at the moment is that you are extracting metals, minerals for metals and critical raw materials that go into products that you lose control of, and you don’t need to,” she said

“The circular economy provides a framework where you can maintain much better control of those resources, and you need to.

“The mining industry and related companies or industries on the periphery possess enough skills to be able to address this problem through a multi-impact solution. Throwing money at problems isn’t always the solution.

“We need to have the right skills in the right places to be able to address it, and these skills will come from everywhere — from the boardroom all the way through to the mine site.”

Continuing discussions on circularity, Sircel technical director Adam Roper highlighted the importance of resource recovery from waste, particularly critical minerals from discarded electronics, during his keynote presentation titled Critical mineral and commodity recovery from e-waste.

“It’s no secret that most of the critical minerals list is found in electronic devices, some of them near exclusively,” he said.

“In terms of recovering these resources, it will relieve pressure on the resources sector that’s looking at more difficult deposits at lower grades to fill the gap between production and consumption.”

“Resource scarcity is also becoming an issue, with China’s dominance in processing and manufacturing. Collecting these resources from the disposal point allows us to have those considerations around strategic initiatives to domestic processing.”

Leveraging technology

Presenters highlighted the way rapidly advancing technology is being leveraged for the benefit of the critical minerals industry.

Geoscience Australia chief executive Melissa Harris showcased the transformational change the company is leading with the development of its Digital Atlas of Australia in her keynote — Australian Government Geoscience: Supporting critical minerals exploration and development.

Digital Atlas is a national geospatial platform, with more than 330 trusted data sets and tens of thousands of users, that integrates geological, resource, water and demographic data, enhancing decision-making for sustainable resource planning.

“We want to unlock the full potential of Australia’s data assets and to help the country recognise the power of integrated data driven decision making,” she said.

“This will also include making our geological and resources data available in digital areas so that users cannot just access the data but also use information with other powerful trusted national datasets.

“The potential for Digital Atlas is enormous. It’s future proof by design so it can adapt and scale, evolve to user needs and to more emerging technologies.”

Sustainability is a pillar of future-proofing the critical minerals industry, an issue addressed by the abundance of presentations exploring environmentally conscious processing methods that showcased innovations minimising energy consumption, water usage and waste generation.

The Copperbelt University lecturer Tina Phiri led one of these presentations when she showcased emerging extraction technologies in her presentation titled Thermodynamic analysis and extraction of copper and cobalt from smelting slag. Smelting slag holds significant potential as a major resource for cobalt and copper.

Current approaches for processing of smelting slag involve high temperatures ranging from 1200°C to 1500°C. In her study, Dr Phiri assessed the global distribution of smelting slag waste, investigated the mineralogical and chemical characteristics, perform thermochemical simulations and developed efficient technologies for cobalt and copper extraction from smelting slag.

The results from the study indicated alkaline glycine leach has the potential to stimulate a myriad of studies aimed at harnessing cutting-edge techniques for environmental remediation and sustainability.

International influence

CMC2025 recognised the importance of international collaboration for the future of critical minerals. The conference provided a diverse forum showcasing international approaches to project development — underscoring the global significance of critical minerals.

Delegates represented more than 20 nations at CMC2025, with presentations from industry experts from Australia, Brazil, Finland, Estonia, France, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia.

Invest Minas strategic advisor Ana Beatriz Sullato delivered key insight into Brazil’s critical minerals potential as the host of some of the world’s largest untapped critical mineral resources in Brazil: the global hub for critical minerals value chain.

At the conference, AusIMM welcomed the Australian Critical Minerals R&D Hub International Study Tour delegates to CMC2025.

The delegation was made up of an esteemed group of 30 researchers and sector experts from all over the world, who were seeing first-hand Australia’s critical minerals capabilities and facilities.

The hub unites the expertise of top Australian federal science agencies ANSTO, Geoscience Australia and CSIRO with the aim of addressing technical challenges and driving collaborative research across the critical minerals value chain.

As critical minerals continue to be a rapidly evolving topic, AusIMM is proud to deliver this important conference annually. Mark your calendars — Critical Minerals 2026 will be held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, from September 20-23, 2026.