Australian Mineral Exploration Review 2025 Significant drill results – critical minerals

Antimony is a critical mineral that is essential for energy, defence and advanced manufacturing applications. The element’s traditional uses include flame retardants and lead‑acid batteries; however, antimony use in these products is declining due to material substitution, modern alloying practices and the shift to lithium-ion batteries. In addition, increasing recycling rates of antimony are meeting most of the metallurgical demand (e.g. lead-acid batteries). Despite these trends, there is renewed demand for antimony supply largely due to non-metallurgical, technology-driven uses. Antimony use in solar photovoltaic glass has expanded rapidly, and it continues to play an important role in electronics and certain semiconductor applications.

In 2024, Australia supplied around 1% of global antimony, ranking seventh globally³¹. Australia is well-positioned to expand its role in diversified global antimony supply chains, supported by a strong resource base, established mining and processing capability and a stable, transparent operating environment. As of January 2026, Australia hosts a pipeline of 26 antimony projects across exploration, development and production stages, providing a robust pipeline for future supply growth³².

Selected significant drill results containing antimony from 2025 are shown in Figure 5 and listed in Table 3. The drill results are concentrated in Victoria and Western Australia with additional results from Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania (Figure 5). Most significant drill results are from projects in the early stage of exploration which do not yet have a published Mineral Resource. Two intercepts are from projects at the resource expansion stage and one from the resource upgrade stage (Table 3).

Antimony, along with gallium and REE, are an initial focus of the Australian Government’s Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve, which is being led out of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources³³. The reserve, which will become operational in the second half of 2026, will safeguard an allocation of these critical minerals to secure supply for Australia and key international partners.

Battery metals, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite, are a group of metals that are essential to the manufacture of rechargeable batteries, including those used to power EVs and store renewable energy. The demand for these metals is driven largely by the rapid growth in manufacturing lithium-ion batteries as well as the industries that require them³⁴.

Beyond batteries, each metal has broader industrial uses: lithium in glass, ceramics and alloys; nickel in stainless steel and high-performance alloys; cobalt in superalloys and industrial applications; and graphite in refractories, lubricants and battery anodes³⁵. As electrification accelerates, demand for these commodities is expected to remain strong.

Australia is a global powerhouse for battery metals, containing some of the world's largest hard-rock lithium deposits and vast resources of nickel, cobalt and graphite. Australia has 28% of the world’s lithium resources, 19% of nickel, 16% of cobalt, 7% of graphite and 9% of manganese³⁶. Despite the vast resources of these commodities, extraction and processing capabilities in Australia are still emerging. There are currently no graphite mines operating in Australia, although there are two in development and an operating processing facility in Queensland³⁷. Lithium has a strong mining sector with 6 operating mines and one developing mine, while there are only a small number of operating mining projects extracting nickel (3), cobalt (1) and manganese ore (2)³⁸.

The majority of significant drilling results reported for battery commodities have occurred in Western Australia; these include nickel, lithium and manganese (Figure 6). Single significant drill results also occurred in the Northern Territory (graphite), Queensland (cobalt), New South Wales (nickel) and Victoria (lithium). Table 4 shows the polymetallic nature of the mineralisation that often hosts battery commodities.

Rare earth elements comprise the 15 lanthanides plus yttrium (Figure 1), which shares similar chemical properties. Niobium commonly occurs in the same geological deposits as REE and is grouped with REE in this review. Both commodities are important for advanced technologies, defence and clean energy applications. Scandium is also sometimes grouped with REE because it shares similar chemical properties and sometimes occurs in similar geological settings. However, because scandium is also commonly associated with nickel-cobalt mineral systems, Geoscience Australia assesses it separately from REE (see section 4.5).

Rapid technological advances have resulted in REE growing in importance in many domestic, medical, industrial and strategic applications because of their unique catalytic, metallurgical, electrical, magnetic and luminescent properties. Examples of the many applications for REE are their use in magnets and super magnets, motors, metal alloys, defence technologies, electronic and computing equipment, batteries, catalytic converters, petroleum refining, medical imaging, colouring agents in glass and ceramics, phosphors, lasers and special glass³⁹.

Niobium is combined with iron to form a microalloy for use in the construction and automotive industries. It is also used to make superalloys for use in aerospace and energy industries, magnetic resonance imaging scanners, nuclear magnetic resonance equipment, glass, jewellery, prosthetics and medical implants⁴⁰.

Australia has a pipeline of more than 100 REE projects at varying stages of exploration, development and operation. In 2024 there was an 18% increase to Australia’s REE resource inventory in 2024⁴¹, and will again increase in 2025 with the definition of 7 maiden resources (Figure 4) and the 12 significant drill results shown in Figure 7 and Table 5. Most significant drilling results are from early-stage projects with no defined Mineral Resources. Most early-stage exploration projects are in the southern part of South Australia and the projects with defined REE mineral resources are concentrated in Western Australia. This is reflective of exploration in areas with known REE mineralisation in the case of Western Australia⁴² or extension of the geology with known mineralisation such as in South Australia⁴³.

Rare earth elements, along with gallium and antimony, are an initial focus of the Australian Government’s Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve, which is being led out of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources⁴⁴. The reserve, which will become operational in the second half of 2026, will safeguard an allocation of these critical minerals to secure supply for Australia and key international partners.

Tungsten is a critical mineral essential to defence, advanced manufacturing and high-performance industrial applications. Its exceptional hardness, density and high melting point make it difficult to substitute in cemented carbides, cutting and drilling tools, wear-resistant components, high-temperature alloys and specialised electronics and semiconductor applications⁴⁵. Demand for tungsten remains closely tied to industrial activity, but supply security has become increasingly important as downstream manufacturers seek reliable and available sources for this important critical mineral.

Geoscience Australia reports that Australia ranks second globally for tungsten resources, with around 15% of the world total, yet supplied only about 1% of global production in 2024⁴⁶. Interest in tungsten exploration is up in 2025, with 8 maiden resources announced (see section 3, Figure 4) compared with none in the previous year⁴⁷. In addition, there was continued reporting of significant drill results in 2025 including from three early-stage exploration projects (Table 6; Figure 8). Tightening overseas supply, due to export controls⁴⁸, declining grades and limited new mine development, combined with strong and growing demand from defence, aerospace, EVs, semiconductors and industrial tooling appear to be creating persistent supply‑demand imbalance.

In addition to the critical minerals listed in Tables 3 to 6, a range of other critical minerals featured in significant drill results reported in Australia in 2025. These include gallium, indium, molybdenum, PGE, tantalum, titanium and vanadium (Table 7; Figure 9), demonstrating Australia’s geological potential to supply a broad range of commodities essential for modern technologies.

Many of these commodities occur in very small amounts and are typically produced as a by-product through the processing of other commodities. The relevant commodity and by-product relationships include:

• Gallium: bauxite processing and, to a lesser extent, from zinc residue processing
• Indium: zinc refining
• Molybdenum: copper processing
• PGE: nickel sulphide and gold processing
• Tantalum: lithium and coltan (niobium-tantalum) mining
• Vanadium: iron ore and steel processing.

These critical minerals are used in alloys, magnets and electronics components critical for telecommunications, defence and aerospace applications. They are also crucial for batteries used in EV and renewable energy systems⁴⁹.

Titanium is also included in this grouping. It is a critical material with two distinct markets: titanium dioxide (TiO₂) pigments, for use in paints, plastics and paper; and titanium metal, used in high‑performance applications such as aerospace, defence and medical implants due to its exceptional strength‑to‑weight ratio and corrosion resistance. Australia plays a strategically important upstream role, holding some of the world’s largest titanium mineral resources and being a major producer of ilmenite and rutile feedstocks, but with limited downstream production⁵⁰.

Exploration drilling for critical minerals yielded significant results in southern Western Australia, particularly for titanium and PGE. Other titanium results were reported in central Western Australia and South Australia (Figure 9), where they occur as both hard rock mineralisation (often with vanadium) and as heavy mineral sand deposits. Molybdenum and indium results occur in Queensland, PGE and scandium results were reported in New South Wales and bismuth occurs in the Northern Territory (Figure 9). Many of these results are polymetallic as shown in Table 7.