Industry calls for UK to mirror EU raw material policy

Many UK battery and mining industry participants are calling for the government to mirror the EU's proposed Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), announced last week.

UK battery investors, mining firms and analysts have warned that the UK is being "left behind" as larger countries and trading blocs formulate strategies for control of critical raw materials. "At a minimum" the UK should mirror policies introduced by the EU, investment platform Volta Energy Technologies' principal of green technology, James Frith, said.

"The Critical Raw Materials Act and the Net Zero Industry Act further demonstrate the progress that countries/regions are making on strengthening their control of clean energy supply chains," Frith said. "Unfortunately, from a UK perspective it is yet another sign of how the country is being left behind in the race for clean energy manufacturing. While Europe is bringing in new regulations to protect its industry, the UK government is systematically failing, in some areas, to support the manufacturing industries that it will require to remain relevant in a net zero future."

He added that the UK has done plenty of work to support science and technology based around batteries, with organisations such as the Faraday Institute, but that there are problems with delivering on manufacturing.

Other industry figures pointed out that the UK and other western countries are only just beginning to adopt strategies that China has been using for years, even decades.

"It's fascinating to see that both the US and the EU are now embracing tactics that China adopted early. State support is needed to permanently establish battery supply chains in the west. The electrification of our societies has now become a matter of national security," Switzerland-based Voltaire Minerals' founder and former head of cobalt trading at trading firm Glencore, David Brocas, said.

UK government 'tinkering around the edges'

The UK government has said it does recognise the importance of critical raw materials and points to steps it has taken to develop supply chains, although many market participants question whether enough is being done.

"We have deployed funding — through the Automotive Transformation Fund and other facilities — to support the development of UK domestic supply chains. We have forged new partnerships with key countries. We have launched new funding for R&D and development assistance," UK business and trade junior minister Nusrat Ghani said. Ghani also recognised that other countries are acting fast to secure access to raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, as well as silicon, tin, gallium for electronics and rare earths.

Ghani pointed to recent investments from the UK government in companies producing these raw materials, such as Green Lithium in Teesside, which received funding through the UK Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF), and Innovate UK's Circular Critical Materials Supply Chains £15mn ($18.5mn) programme towards recycling rare earths. She also pointed to trade deals with Canada and South Africa as key to underpinning the UK's strategy.

But one battery metals trader said the UK government was "tinkering around the edges", making no solid commitments to scaling up manufacturing or production of raw materials.

The UK may struggle to keep pace strategically with China and the US, said Charles Bray, chairman of UK-listed Aterian, which mines niobium, tin and tantalum in Rwanda and copper in Morocco. "As a UK-listed business, we recognise that enabling the right policy to attract the best of industry is vitally important. The energy transition is of such critical importance to all of us. Governments are now waking up to the huge head start China has made," he said, adding that the world is in a "global arms race" for critical minerals.

By Thomas Kavanagh