The European Commission has selected 13 strategic raw material projects located outside the European Union. It estimates overall capital investment needs at €5.5bn ($6.26bn) to start operations.
The projects were chosen from 49 submissions and are located in Brazil, Canada, Greenland, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Malawi, New Caledonia, Norway, Serbia, South Africa, the UK, Ukraine and Zambia.
"The selected Strategic Projects will benefit from coordinated support by the Commission, Member States and financial institutions in the form of facilitating access to finance and contacts with relevant
off-takers," the Commission said.
The projects were selected under the 2024 EU raw materials act. The law sets a 2030 target for the EU to extract at least 10pc of 17 strategic raw materials domestically, process at least 40pc and recycle 25pc. To ensure diversification, no third country should account for over 65pc of annual EU consumption.
EU industrial commissioner Stephane Sejourne said the bloc will "probably" achieve its 2030 raw materials targets with a forthcoming call for applications. Sejourne added that bans on exports of raw materials reinforce the EU's desire to diversify.
"We need to reduce our dependence on all countries, and in particular on a number of countries such as China, on which we are more than 100pc dependent, whether on extraction, refining or recycling," said Sejourne.
Ten of the 13 projects selected focus on strategic raw materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite. Two projects cover rare earth extraction: Songwe Hill (Malawi) and Zandkopsdrift (South Africa).
The other projects approved on 4 June were Balakhivka Graphite Deposit (Ukraine) CaledoNi's Nickel processing project (New Caledonia), Norgraph and Greenland Graphite integrated extraction and processing projects (Norway and Greenland), GreenRoc Strategic Materials graphite supply (Greenland), Integrated Dumont Nickel Project (Canada) and Rio Tinto's Jadar lithium and boron project (Serbia).
Also approved were Kobaloni Energy cobalt processing project (Zambia). Evion's Maniry Graphite Mine (Madagascar), Nussir's copper project (Norway), Jervois Brasil Metalurgia's Sao Miguel Paulista (SMP) nickel and cobalt refinery (Brazil), Sarytogan Graphite extraction (Kazakhstan), and Tungsten West (UK).
