Meanwhile Australia's last remaining manganese plant shut down last night...
Numbers wise it was ~ 1.6 million tonne per annum in a global market that demands ~ 20 million tonne per annum, as a smaller producer in Tasmania with other factors dragging down it wasn't competitive with South Africa, Gabon, and Ghana.
Australia’s only manganese smelter to close, administrators say - https://www.mining.com/web/australias-only-manganese-smelter...
The question is, does that actually mean there is no way to get a smelter up and running in the event of a critical need within a useful timeframe.
Bear in mind, right now today, Australia has multiple shuttered lithium production sites that went up in anticipation of a much greater battery demand than actually occurred, and have since been shuttered. In a similar manner the same is true for other mineral supply chains.
The link to mining.com was a nod to the historic ebb and flow of Australian exploration / production and the kinds of things that get hashed out at the Diggers and Dealers mining forums.
In terms of "critical resources" - we have them in the ground, and we have a lot of smelting technology that we can draw on / repurpose.
What Australia does lack, for now, is next level up processing - eg: hard rock lithium spodumene concentrate processing, currently outsourced to China and Malaysia, only recently barely begun here.
How do you get the very bespoke equipment from overseas if supply chains are being attacked?
Where do you get the designers and operational staff, bearing in mind the industry might have been closed for a while and all prior talent has retired or died?
What's the risk of above vs the government subsidising a plant to keep it operational and known good state?
For manganese ore concentration and binding with carbon?? Ball mills, acid washing, screening, anodes, et al. are 'bespoke' now?
Look, there are big speciality bits which you can order in from overseas, fabricate locally, or retrieve from "stashed one over there" yards.
When existing processing plants are "scrapped" that usually means that beams, catwalks, and all manner of things are crushed and melted down - but it also means that motors, crucibles, linings, etc. are sold on (usually within Australia), or stored and eventually refurbished and sold or reused.
> to keep it operational and known good state?
Is it? It's been going for a while and no one was interested in stepping in due to economics and clean-up issues: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-17/future-liberty-bell-b...
Some might take the approach of suggesting a partial teardown / refit to be more Norwegian in its carbon consumption: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019592552...
One thing that I, personally, am not overly concerned about would be a long lasting critical shortage of ferromanganese production ability in Australia.
If the demand / desire is there then we have the resources and in-country skills to step up and make it happen.
We are, as a country, aiming too low on what we can do with mineral resources and charging other countries / non-Australian companies far too little for the privilege of extracting our "wealth" / assets and flogging them on overseas.
The mining super profits tax, franking credits, and similar failed reforms benefited only the top 1% of 1% of Australians, yet people voted against them.
Hopefully the recent negative gearing and trust changes stick.