Bags containing a mixture of rare earth elements with caution radiation signage

The facility of Australian mining firm Lynas in eastern Malaysia's Gebeng with tonnes of packaged rare earth minerals ready for shipping (Arif Kartono/AFP via Getty Images)

A difference Australia will find critical: minerals are not the same as materials

Australia and ASEAN are racing to mine critical minerals – but few are yet fit for industrial use.

Apoorba Banerjee

31 July 20264 min read

Critical-minerals policy has become preoccupied with possession. Governments count deposits, announce processing plants and sign supply agreements as though each new project automatically weakens dependence on China. But opening a mine or refinery does not mean its output can immediately enter a battery, turbine, semiconductor or weapons system. Before a manufacturer changes suppliers, the replacement material must be characterised, tested and qualified for a particular use.

That distinction is becoming increasingly important for Australia and Southeast Asia. In January, Canberra announced a A$1.2 billion Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve (Opens in new window), initially focused on antimony, gallium and rare earths. The reserve will secure rights to Australian production and make them available to domestic industry and international partners. Australia and the United States have also committed at least US$1 billion each to projects under their bilateral critical-minerals framework (Opens in new window).

ASEAN, meanwhile, wants to convert its considerable mineral endowment into downstream industrial capacity. Its new Minerals Cooperation Action Plan (Opens in new window) for 2026–30 promises greater integration from extraction to processing, manufacturing and trade. In June, ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn described (Opens in new window) the region’s ambition to become a trusted partner in the global minerals trade.

The two agendas appear naturally complementary: Australia supplies resources, while Southeast Asia provides expanding manufacturing capacity. Yet they omit the process that turns one into the other.

An alternative supplier cannot simply be inserted into a purchase order because its product has the same description.

The qualification gap, however, is that manufacturers do not purchase “nickel”, “graphite” or “rare earths” in the abstract. They purchase materials with defined chemical, mechanical and performance characteristics. A battery manufacturer may require nickel sulphate with tightly controlled purity, while a turbine or power-equipment producer may require a particular nickel alloy with specified composition, grain size and tensile properties. Material from a different source may carry a different impurity profile or respond differently during processing.

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) noted (Opens in new window) in its June 2026 critical-materials review that industry still requires agreed nickel grades and impurity thresholds, while research must map impurity content against mechanical and corrosion performance. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) specifications (Opens in new window) for nickel-alloy forgings likewise require chemical analysis alongside mechanical and ultrasonic testing. The name of the mineral may remain the same, but its suitability for a particular industrial application cannot be assumed.

Changing suppliers can require laboratory analysis, production trials, audits and customer approval. The component made with the substitute material may also have to be tested within a larger system. Even where a replacement is technically suitable, manufacturers must establish consistent output at commercial scale. A project can consequently be producing material while remaining commercially unavailable to the industries it was intended to secure.

The United States is beginning to recognise this problem. The June 2026 review (Opens in new window) by the NIST identifies material characterisation, reference materials, substitution and traceability as foundations for accelerating the adoption of critical materials. Its work is intended to provide the measurement standards manufacturers need to compare unfamiliar or recycled feedstocks.

This problem is familiar on any industrial shop floor. An alternative supplier cannot simply be inserted into a purchase order because its product has the same description. Drawings, process records, inspection results and material certificates must be assessed; samples may need to be tested; and the end customer may retain final approval. During a disruption, discovering that an alternative source exists but has never been approved is practically equivalent to having no alternative.

The Nyrstar NV smelter in Port Pirie, Australia (Jonathan van der Knaap/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Australia and ASEAN should establish a joint “Industrial Materials Qualification Network”. Rather than creating another high-level dialogue, it should connect Australian miners and processors with ASEAN manufacturers, accredited laboratories, universities, standards bodies and major industrial buyers.

Its first task should be to identify materials for which alternative regional production exists but industrial qualification remains weak. The network could then fund shared testing protocols, reference samples and pilot production runs. Results should be stored in a trusted regional database recording composition, performance, processing history and eligible applications.

Participation by manufacturers is essential. Laboratories can establish that a material meets a technical standard, but only industrial users can show that it performs reliably inside an actual production process. Governments could reduce the cost of trials through grants, pooled procurement or conditions attached to public financing. Projects receiving Australian or ASEAN support should be required to budget for customer qualification, not merely plant construction.

The network would not produce universal approval. A material qualified for an electric motor is not automatically suitable for a fighter aircraft. Nor should governments compel companies to accept untested inputs. The purpose is to complete as much validation as possible before an emergency and to create evidence that individual firms can use in their own approval processes.

The International Energy Agency’s 2026 outlook (Opens in new window) warns that supply chains remain highly concentrated even as mineral supply expands. Diversification cannot be measured only in tonnes extracted or refining capacity announced. It must also be measured in how many alternative materials have been tested, how many facilities can reproduce them consistently and how many manufacturers are authorised to use them.

The next phase of Australia–ASEAN critical-minerals cooperation must move beyond financing extraction and processing. Australia and ASEAN should stop counting a mineral as secure merely because it has been mined, refined or placed under contract. A supply chain becomes resilient only when an alternative material has been tested, approved and placed into production. Qualification is the point at which mineral ambition becomes industrial power.

About the author

Apoorba Banerjee

Apoorba Banerjee is a Malaysia-based country operations strategist leading industrial bearings initiatives across ASEAN, with a focus on supply chain resilience and energy infrastructure.

Topics

Energy & resources ASEAN Australia Trade & investment Southeast Asia