Context:

• India’s clean energy transition is increasingly dependent on imported critical minerals and rare earths, making external supply chains vital, especially as China tightens export controls.
• Like other countries, India is seeking to diversify mineral trade partnerships, encourage responsible production, and build standards-based markets.
• To address both immediate needs and long-term resilience, India has adopted a two-pronged approach—securing overseas access while strengthening domestic capabilities.
• Over the past five years, New Delhi has pursued numerous bilateral and multilateral partnerships alongside domestic policy reforms, raising questions about their effectiveness and the need for recalibration.

Uneven Progress Across Critical Mineral Partnerships

• India’s critical mineral partnerships have delivered mixed outcomes, with some countries emerging as more reliable and strategically aligned than others.
• Australia: A Reliable Anchor Partner
  • Australia stands out due to political stability, large mineral reserves, and strategic clarity.
  • Cooperation has progressed through long-term supply talks, joint research, and investments.
  • Under the 2022 India–Australia Critical Minerals Investment Partnership, five lithium and cobalt projects were identified for potential investment.
• Japan: A Model for Long-Term Resilience
  • Japan offers a template for resilience built on diversification, stockpiling, recycling, and sustained R&D—lessons drawn after China restricted rare earth exports a decade ago.
  • Beyond ties with Indian Rare Earths Limited, cooperation now includes joint extraction, processing, and stockpiling, bilaterally and in third countries.
• Africa: Opportunity with a Long-Term Lens
  • African nations present strong opportunities, combining mineral abundance with growing expectations of local value addition.
  • India’s agreements with Namibia (lithium, rare earths, uranium) and asset talks in Zambia (copper, cobalt) signal intent.
  • Success will depend on a long-term industrial approach to compete with more coordinated players.
• United States: Strategic Potential, Policy Volatility
  • Despite “friend-shoring” rhetoric, cooperation with the United States has struggled to move beyond dialogue.
  • Tariffs, shifting trade rules, and Inflation Reduction Act incentives add uncertainty.
  • Initiatives like TRUST and the Strategic Minerals Recovery Initiative offer frameworks, but policy volatility limits reliability.
• European Union: Standards-Driven Synergy
  • The European Union demonstrates how regulation and industrial strategy can align through the Critical Raw Materials Act and the European Battery Alliance.
  • Progress for India requires alignment with EU transparency, lifecycle, and environmental standards.
• West Asia: Midstream Potential, Limited Depth
  • United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are investing in battery materials, refining, and green hydrogen, acquiring mining stakes globally.
  • The region could serve India as a midstream processing hub, though institutional frameworks remain thin.
• Russia: A Hedge, Not a Foundation
  • Russia holds substantial reserves and has longstanding scientific ties with India.
  • However, sanctions, financing constraints, and logistical risks limit reliability—making Russia a supplementary hedge rather than a core pillar.

Latin America: Emerging Opportunities and Intense Competition

• Latin America is emerging as a new frontier for India’s critical minerals strategy, with growing engagement in Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Brazil.
• These countries are increasingly central to global copper, nickel, and rare-earth supply chains.
• Indian public and private firms have begun investing in the region, including a ₹200 crore exploration and development agreement signed by Khanij Bidesh India Limited with Argentina.
• However, competition is intense and engagement remains nascent, underscoring the need for value-chain partnerships and local processing beyond extraction.

Canada: Potential Partner Amid Diplomatic Reset

• With diplomatic ties restored, Canada re-emerges as a promising minerals partner for India.
• Canada’s reserves of nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earths, alongside a recently signed trilateral agreement with Australia and India, position it well for cooperation.
• Sustained progress, however, will depend on political stability and consistent bilateral engagement.

From Ore Access to Value-Chain Resilience

• Across regions, a clear lesson emerges: securing mineral ore alone is insufficient. The real vulnerability lies in processing.
• Without domestic refining and midstream capacity, India remains exposed to supply-chain disruptions.
• Building Integrated, End-to-End Partnerships
  • India needs integrated partnerships across the value chain:
    • Upstream ore extraction: Africa, Australia, Canada, Latin America
    • Midstream processing of the mineral ores: West Asia (the Gulf) and Japan
    • Downstream technologies creation: European Union and United States (batteries, recycling)
    • Diversification hedge: Russia
  • Technology, innovation, and on-ground project execution matter more than announcements.
• Strategic Focus Before Expansion
  • While cooperation with additional partners like South Korea and Indonesia is valuable, India must first sharpen a coherent strategy for existing partnerships to ensure results.
• Strengthening the Domestic Foundation
  • None of these efforts will succeed without a robust domestic framework for responsible mining.
  • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, transparency, and regulatory certainty are increasingly decisive in international partnerships.

The Way Forward

• India has built an extensive network of critical mineral partnerships. The next step is to deepen what works, recalibrate what doesn’t, and anchor the strategy in processing capacity, technology leadership, and long-term certainty.