Voices of IMARC 2025: Part 2
- 11 November 2025
It’s official: mining is critical
“Critical minerals availability makes or breaks the 21st century.” – Fleet Space Technologies chief exploration officer, Matt Pearson
“Over the past decade exports were transactional, relationships were an afterthought, Queensland’s export potential sat idle and investment opportunities were missed. By taking our international partnerships seriously we are delivering a fresh start with new jobs and new investment, so Queenslanders can get on with building the lifestyle they deserve.” – Queensland minister for finance, trade, employment and training, Ros Bates
“Without mining we can’t transition our energy system. We can’t expand renewable power. We can’t drive the economy of the future.” – New South Wales premier, Chris Minns
“It was only the 1970s when the first commercial lithium battery emerged. Fast forward to as recent as 2018, half the world’s lithium demand was still in batteries and ceramics. Over the last sort of eight to nine years that picture has completely changed and batteries now speak for 90-plus percent of total demand. It’s been this rapid change.” – PLS CEO, Dale Henderson
“We’re going through a profound transformation of our economies, our energy systems and our geopolitical landscape. Critical minerals are at the heart of this transformation. They’re not merely commodities. They are strategic enablers of our future.” – European Commission Mobility, Raw Materials, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, director for decarbonisation, Joaquim Nunes de Almeida
“I’ve been 35 or 40 years in this business and we sailed under the radar for a very long time. We're no longer under the radar.” – IGO non-executive chair, Michael Nossal
Volatility and the new normal
“I don’t think the market is working the way it should be and that’s because you see not just short-term price volatility which is skewing the market ... We see outright price manipulation. And that’s part of the plan, frankly, from China that’s been going on for over 20 years. I think we’ve been too slow to see that, commercially but also geopolitically and strategically.” – Appian Capital Advisory head of global affairs, Dominic Raab
“The pendulum swings that we see from administration to administration really have been a barrier to advancing the mining and mineral processing industries in the US.” – American Exploration & Mining Association executive director, Mark Compton
Teamwork makes the dream work
“This event is a really important example of collaboration. There are endless discussions about collaboration. The way to really drive the outcomes that are impactful is to move from talking about it to actually doing it in a focused way. But compared to where the mining sector was on collaboration 10 years ago, from a technology perspective, we have come a long way. There's always more to do.” – Schneider Electric ANZ/Pacific mining, minerals and metals regional segment leader, Emilie Ditton
“When you drive around Chinese steelmaking towns you'll often see that they’ve painted the side of steelmaking infrastructure with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. And I just find it the most profound symbol of the people of China saying we want a better way. We actually want to find a clean way to still support this industry that is very critical to our economy.” – Fortescue general manager, green metal, Tijana La Bianca
“Let’s collaborate, let’s simulate and let’s innovate together. Our aim here is definitely to go deep in the supply chain, to get to know you and to understand which ideas and visions we have to work with [for you] to be a suitable, reliable and constructive raw material supplier.” – Volkswagen group raw material procurement head, Mauricio Jankoski da Cunha
Friends, foes, feints and floors
“In Saudi Arabia we believe collaboration is no longer optional. It is a strategic necessity. This is why we are strengthening ties with partners here in Australia and across the world to ensure that every link in the global mineral chain, from separation to processing to services, is more secure, more sustainable and more inclusive.” – Saudi Arabia Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources vice-minister for mining affairs, Khalid Al Mudaifer
“We are capable to take risk with the firepower of a balance sheet of €600 billion, and we are able to invest up to €100 billion per year.” – European Investment Bank vice president, Nicola Beer
“We see significant product placement risk for our Pilbara ores going into the future and we're seeing an industry preference for higher grade orebodies, with Simandou and others coming online ... and that presents a significant risk for us as a company, but also for Australia.” – Fortescue general manager, green metal, Tijana La Bianca
“We love market volatility; it creates opportunity and dislocation and also creates opportunity. But we also don't like to see our customers and suppliers going out of business. So I think you need the appropriate level of government protection to start industries. The Chinese have supported their industrial champions for years, so this is not something that the winners haven't been doing. It is something we need to do selectively and then it will be successful.” – Traxys CEO, Mark Kristoff
“From an Australian perspective I think the [rare earths] stockpile needs to be connected with the right customers. We’re not an end user of the product so there is a need to have a close connection with ... customers in the US and the EU so there is an end use for that product. That’s really critical.” – Arafura Rare Earths chief financial officer, Peter Sherrington
“We’ve got very strong partners in all the North Asian steelmaking countries ... China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and of course, India is now very much into the mix. The federal government’s done a great job building a trade relationship there and they’re obviously a massively growing democracy as well.” – Magnetite Mines managing director, Tim Dobson
“China is a nation built on exports and every nation built on exports needs the EU and the US market to be accessible. If this is not the case they really have a problem. China for the past 10 years has tried to go away from the investment and export driven growth model towards a consumption driven model, which has completely failed. So they need an open and accessible market in the US and the EU.” – Ginger International Trade & Investment director, Thomas Kruemmer
“In 2017 when we went there it was a different world. We were in a China world where everything we made in Australia was being shipped off to China for processing. We looked for a lithium project. We found one in Utah and our intention was to process that and send it to China, which was the major market. The US was probably sleeping on their deck chair at the beach. They woke up and found the sand had all been roped off and someone had stolen the bucket. Now, look out. The US is here and they have an intention of getting everything reorganised in a way which makes the US the greatest country in the world again. I'm not going to paraphrase somebody, but ... that’s really what changed for us.” – Anson Resources CEO, Bruce Richardson
Innovation and digital transformation
“Digital transformation in mining isn’t just about apps or dashboards it’s about decision latency. Every minute between sensing, understanding and acting costs money. Our mission is to collapse that latency – from drill bit to boardroom. If we can shorten the distance between measurement and decision, we change the economics of mining itself.” – IMDEX CEO, Paul House
“As we progress as an industry technology will start kicking in a lot more: remote control, automation, more mechanisation [and] less reliance on handheld sort of manual work. You don’t need to be strong to do the work, necessarily. You need to be smart and very much focused on the job. And that’s something I see is a big change. We are very focused on bringing more diversity into our workforce. We shouldn’t be limited by strength. We should be limited by skill.” – Aurelia Metals CEO, Bryan Quinn
“We need to become more competitive when it comes to innovation. We need to become more competitive when it comes to producing the right skills in the right numbers to sustain the growth of the minerals industry.” – European Raw Materials Alliance director, Massimo Gasparon
“I think we’re just beginning the broader critical mineral super cycle. It’s at the forefront of all geopolitical discussions globally. We'll see technology and technology access, much like it is in semiconductors, become really strategic and the leading startups will get government funding. We’ll start to see really large influxes of capital come into the sector. I think it's a great time to be a start-up founder [and] an early-stage venture investor.” – Orion Industrial Ventures managing partner, Mark Frayman
“I have a PhD in astrobiology. I am not a 23-year-old fresh outa Y Combinator that is delusional with the fact I'm going to change the world. I have made so many original mistakes ... Oh, you want 60 ways our technology is not going to work. We can give you 73.” – Endolith founder and CEO, Liz Dennett
“We’re using microbes but really it’s biological intelligence. We’re using microbial communities that we’ve adapted through some really unique techniques and we're combining that with a cloud-native platform and intelligence. These are three technologies that make a Venn diagram that could really only exist in 2025.” – Liz Dennett again
“I think it’s amazing that there’s so much early-stage VC money coming in. But I think [the] conversation about the metabolism of the mining industry echoes across all the panels. There is the technology to develop and then there’s the effort and the money to actually get technology adopted. That takes time, that takes money and that takes commitment. And if we're not finding ways to fund that as well as funding the start then it's not going to be enough.” – IMDEX chief digital and orebody knowledge officer, Michelle Carey
“Interoperability is what I see needs to happen for the next three-to-five years so that we can start to use best-in-class solutions with other solutions. We shouldn't be having to use one solution because of the colour of the machine that we buy and to be locked out with proprietary systems.” – Byrnecut automation & electrification manager, Luke Clements
AI is okay
“AI is a real buzzword. Everyone’s thinking and talking about and for good reason. I’m optimistic about AI. I think absolutely it’s going to help us as an enabler to better productivity and decision making. I think it’s easy to get distracted by it and so you've got to be really disciplined in your approach to assessing AI opportunities.” – South32 global commercial and supply chain vice president, Rob Jackson
“The problem with AI is not the technology, it’s the trust. Unless you build trust with the teams themselves ... then the entire effort doesn't work.” – Razor Labs chief business officer, Tomer Srulevich
