India scouting for critical mineral assets in Congo, Zambia, Tanzania, Australia: Mines Secretary

Indian government seeks critical mineral assets in Congo, Zambia, Tanzania, and Australia to fuel clean energy technologies.

The Government on Thursday (February 27, 2025) said that the country is scouting for mining and exploration of critical mineral assets in Congo, Zambia, Tanzania and Australia.

Speaking at a press conference here, Mines Secretary V.L. Kantha Rao said, “The Australian government is working with KABIL....There are also other countries like Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and few other countries where through our missions...(we) are working on trying to get critical mineral assets for exploration and mining for Indian companies in those countries.”

Critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth are important raw materials needed to fuel the growth of rapidly growing clean energy technologies and their expanding uses ranging from wind turbines and electricity networks to electric vehicles and battery manufacturing.

The secretary further said that along with KABIL, public sector units like Coal India, NMDC and ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas investment arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, are also exploring critical mineral blocks in Australia.

“The Zambian Government has recently agreed to give India a greenfield area of 9,000 square km for carrying out exploration of cobalt and copper,” he said.

“We will take two to three years in doing this exploration and we hope that after exploration we will be able to get the mining rights also,” Mr. Rao said.

Stating that lithium blocks are a lot in demand, Mines Minister G. Kishan Reddy said that the Geological Survey of India has identified few lithium blocks in Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh.