The South African Institute for Minining and Metalurgy (SAIMM) hosted its second biennial conference focused on southern African battery materials in Mbombela at the start of August 2024, and Project Blue was invited to give a keynote to kick off the conference.

The conference brought together stakeholders from industry and academia to showcase and discuss the latest developments in battery materials in Southern Africa. At this year's conference delegates from all across Africa attended to share their perspectives on Africa's role in the battery supply chain, along with several technical papers on technological developments and opportunities.

Project Blue's Tanisha Schultz and Howard Head were in attendance to present our views and forecasts on the key narratives that will underpin battery raw materials demand and where African opportunities lie to advance its position in the supply chain. Currently, Africa plays a variedly important role across the different battery raw materials, from the mining of cobalt in the DRC to the development of battery-grade manganese sulphate by several key players. However, very little material refining takes place in Africa, with exports dominated by mineral concentrates.

Much of Africa's mineral endowments are currently exploited and dominated by China, which has heavily invested into developing these projects. Despite this, strategic investments by Western countries have seen increased attention as access to critical materials in Africa offer a diversification from traditional supply chains largely locked in via China. Project Blue's critical materials platform (Proxima) is tracking companies entering into offtake agreements globally, including a ramp up in agreements to both the West and the East for African projects.

Africa has a unique geopolitical position in critical materials to continue to leverage its mining and resource heritage as various critical material strategies and legislation such as the USA's Inflation Reduction Act are ironing out friend-shoring relations, which will be necessary to stimulate domestic supply and secure battery material supply chains. Delegates were optimistic about Africa's potential while caution around investing in Africa remains. Nevertheless, papers that were presented highlight that Africa has existing expertise to take advantage of opportunities.