The European Commission published on Wednesday its first list of critical minerals strategic projects located outside of the EU, with 13 awards, Kallanish reports.

The selected projects are located across the Americas, Africa, Europe, Central Asia and Oceania and require a capital investment of €5.5 billion ($6.3 billion). Complementing the 47 EU-based projects selected in March, the new developments will also benefit from facilitated access to finance and contacts with relevant offtakers.

“Europe needs raw materials to succeed in our industrial and climate ambitions,” comments Stéphane Séjourné, the commission’s executive vice-president for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy. “After the projects announced in the EU, today’s list of 13 strategic projects across the world will help to reduce Europe’s dependencies, contribute to our economic security while creating growth, jobs and export opportunities in the countries concerned.”

The nominations cover battery raw materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese and graphite, as well as rare earths, boron and tungsten. They are located in Ukraine, New Caledonia, Greenland, Norway, Canada, Serbia, Zambia, Madagascar, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Malawi, South Africa and the UK.

Rio Tinto’s $2.4 billion Jadar lithium project in Serbia is amongst the selected, as well as Jervois’ São Miguel Paulista nickel and cobalt refinery project in Brazil, which is currently under care and maintenance. Mkango Resources’ Songwe Hill rare earths mining project in Malawi has also been selected, alongside an integrated graphite project by GreenRoc Strategic Minerals in Greenland and Norway.

Most of the proposed developments are upstream of the value chain (extraction), with three processing projects and one integrated project. In terms of raw materials for the battery and EV supply chain, four projects focus on graphite, three on nickel and cobalt, two on rare earths and one on lithium. Some projects will produce more than one critical mineral.