Here’s a look at Australian mining jurisdictions, including how much the country’s states export and how they compare to foreign peers.
Australia is well known as a prolific mining nation, with large sections of its economy built on mining since the mid-1800s onwards.
Minerals account for up to 60 percent of Australia’s export merchandise, according to Geosciences Australia, giving the mining industry a 12 percent share of gross domestic product.
But not all states in Australia are equal, with the premier jurisdiction and source of wealth being Western Australia, which takes up the western third of the arid continent.
Nickel mines in Australia produced 180,000 tonnes of the metal in 2019, putting the country in fifth place for production worldwide.
Nickel is the rising star of the base metals world, and is quickly gaining more prominence beyond its traditional role in industrial applications through the creation of stainless steel.
Moonlighting as a key ingredient in the electric metals world, nickel is a major component in the creation of the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and other electric applications.
Australia is positioned to take advantage of rising demand for the metal, with the continent-spanning nation sitting on some 20 percent of global nickel reserves, behind only neighbouring Indonesia.