Alcoa’s final investment decision on a 100-tonne-a-year gallium plant at its Wagerup alumina refinery is more than a single company milestone – it’s a signal that Western Australia is emerging as a serious, government-backed alternative to Chinese gallium supply. For NIMY Resources (ASX:NIM), one of the state’s most advanced primary gallium explorers, that signal couldn’t be better timed.
A tier-one endorsement for WA gallium
This month, Alcoa Corporation (ASX:AAI) committed to building a gallium processing plant beside its Wagerup refinery in WA’s South West, backed by funding support from the Australian, US and Japanese governments. The project is expected to produce around 100 tonnes of gallium annually – roughly 10% of current global demand positioning Australia as one of the largest gallium producers outside China.
It’s a landmark moment for a market that has, until now, struggled to attract serious capital. China currently accounts for the overwhelming majority of global refined gallium production, and its 2023 export controls on the metal have pushed Western buyers to hunt for alternative, allied supply chains at almost any cost, with European prices reportedly running at roughly five times Chinese levels.
Alcoa’s FID doesn’t remove that challenge on its own. But it proves something juniors in this space have been arguing for years: WA gallium projects can attract serious government and commercial backing when they’re technically credible and strategically positioned. That’s a green light the whole sector has been waiting for.
NIMY: the state’s most advanced primary gallium play
While Alcoa’s advantage lies in gallium recovered as a by-product of its existing bauxite-to-alumina operations, NIMY Resources is taking a different – and arguably more scalable path: developing one of the few genuine primary gallium resources in the country.
NIMY’s Block 3 discovery at the Mons Project, roughly 370km northeast of Perth, hosts a maiden inferred resource of 7.23Mt at 102g/t gallium trioxide (70g/t cut-off) – a high-grade result that starts near surface and remains open. At a lower 20g/t cut-off, that resource expands to 64.3Mt at 42g/t, with magnetic data pointing to a further 3.5km of potential strike extension.
Managing Director Luke Hampson said the Wagerup development strengthens the case for WA’s broader gallium ecosystem – NIMY included.
Alcoa’s commitment to the gallium production plant reflects the strong outlook for this critical metal and the need for the western world to develop alternative supplies to China.”
Unlike Alcoa, NIMY doesn’t have a Bayer-process liquor stream to bolt a recovery circuit onto – its task is to prove up an ore-based flowsheet capable of mining, concentrating and refining gallium from its chlorite-rich material to commercial specification. That work is already well underway, with NIMY partnered with Curtin University on a two-year extraction and refining program backed by $550,000 from the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia, alongside dedicated metallurgical testwork and a scoping study spanning mining, processing, costs and markets.
Critically, NIMY has also built runway into the US market through a non-binding agreement with critical minerals group M2i Global, which includes prospective gallium sales, introductions to financiers, and direct engagement with US government buyers. Ore from Block 3 has already been shipped to the US for assessment by academic and defence-linked organisations. Hampson has flagged growing European and Asian interest sitting alongside those US relationships.
Why Wagerup matters for the whole pipeline
Alcoa’s investment does more than add tonnes to the allied gallium supply chain – it validates the thesis that WA can become a genuine critical minerals hub, combining processing capability, specialist expertise and international customer networks with a region that already hosts multiple gallium discoveries.
That matters directly for NIMY. Developers can now point to Wagerup when approaching export-credit agencies, critical minerals funds, defence buyers and semiconductor companies – proof that Australian gallium is a commodity allied governments are willing to finance and buy. With Australia having committed up to US$200 million in concessional equity through Export Finance Australia toward the Wagerup project, and Japan’s government and Sojitz backing the plant through a strategic partnership, the appetite for allied gallium supply is clearly there. NIMY, as one of the country’s most advanced standalone gallium developers, is well placed to be next in line.
The processing hurdle remains real – semiconductor-grade gallium demands purity of 5N to 8N, and WA’s ambitions can’t stop at primary production. But with Curtin University metallurgical work progressing, a scoping study underway, and direct relationships already forming with US buyers, NIMY is methodically closing that gap.