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Nickel Resources and Potential of Australia

Created 16/10/2025

Updated 16/10/2025

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Nickel is an important industrial commodity that is used in the manufacture of stainless steel, super-alloys and in rechargeable batteries. Australia holds the world's largest economic resources of nickel, with approximately 25% of global resources (based on latest data from United States Geological Survey, 2012). The bulk of Australia's nickel resources occur in laterite deposits (69%). However, most (82%) of Australia's nickel production is from sulfide deposits hosted by ultramafic volcanic and intrusive rocks (komatiites), within the Archean Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia. Although komatiite-hosted deposits dominate Australian production, this deposit type ranks only fourth in global nickel production (18%), after deposits hosted by large igneous provinces (LIPs) (30%, e.g., Norilsk, Russia), astrobleme (20%, Sudbury, Canada) and tholeiitic intrusion-hosted or 'basal sulfide' deposits (20%, e.g., Voisey's Bay, Canada and Jinchuan, China). Tholeiitic intrusion-hosted nickel sulphide deposits are highly sought exploration targets due to their potential size and co-products of platinum-group elements (PGE) and copper. This brochure highlights Australia's current resources and potential for tholeiitic intrusion-hosted nickel sulphide deposits.

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Field Value
Title Nickel Resources and Potential of Australia
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/b24f7346-fa2f-4ecc-83fa-d4d1b39d25bf
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 22/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage Australia
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Nickel Resources and Potential of Australia". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/nickel-resources-and-potential-of-australia