By Melanie Burton
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Explosives maker Orica plans to expand into supplying chemicals to help purify metals for use in the rapidly growing battery sector, looking at acquisitions and developing its own business, its CEO said on Thursday.
The push comes amid concerns that Australia, while looking to reap more value from its mineral wealth in the energy transition, does not yet have chemicals makers to support a processing industry to supply battery manufacturers.
"My ambition is to get access to a portfolio of mining chemicals that help in the extraction and purification of future facing commodities," Sanjeev Gandhi told media after speaking at an industry lunch.
"There's a lot of chemistry that goes into copper purification, nickel purification, lithium ... to convert ore into usable product is all chemistry. And that chemistry is what I'm really looking for in terms of growing my portfolio."
Orica is looking both at developing and acquiring those businesses, he said, in chemicals that do not compete with its mining customers.
Gandhi, who has helmed the world's biggest explosives maker for the past two years, worked for 26 years at German chemicals giant BASF, which has a battery materials business.
As the world's battery supply chains take shape, Australia needs to focus on what it does best, Gandhi said.
"If we pretended that we were to catch up and start making batteries here, I think we're kidding ourselves. But what we can do is go a step further. From extracting the ore to purifying it and putting it in saleable form."
Orica also wants to grow in North America working with Alpha HPA, an Australian company that makes high purity aluminium products for applications including lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
"The environmental footprint of that technology has to be zero, otherwise automotive OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) will not touch them," Gandhi said.
Orica supplies reagents to Alpha HPA.
"We could scale this up as time goes on, but they need now to get these commercial negotiations with the automotive industry going first."
Alpha HPA, which also makes products used in low-carbon LED lighting and high-power semi-conductors, is preparing for a phased expansion, Managing Director Rimas Kairaitis said in an emailed request for comment.
"Alpha looks forward to working with Orica on future expansions," he said.