Australia’s Zirconium Exports Fueling Russian Military Capabilities, Investigation Reveals
Sydney, Australia – Australia is exporting significant quantities of zirconium, a critical mineral used in both nuclear programs and hypersonic missile production, to China, with a substantial portion ultimately ending up in the hands of Russian manufacturers linked to the state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom, a Four Corners investigation has revealed.
Trade data indicates Image Resources, Australia’s largest zirconium producer, sent over $5 million worth of the mineral to Russia in the year leading up to February 2025. The primary buyer of Chinese zirconium is CMP, a Russian manufacturer and an arm of Rosatom, which produces cladding for nuclear fuel rods and alloys for hypersonic missiles – weapons Russia has reportedly tested against civilian targets during the Ukraine war.
“We need to look at how does our economic and our trade policy support our security strategy,” says Jennifer Parker, a former naval officer and expert associate at ANU’s National Security College. “We need to ask a lot of hard questions about what we are trading, who we’re trading it with, what does that mean for their capability, and what does that mean for our vulnerabilities.”
another key source of Australian zirconium is the thunderbird Mine near Broome, Western Australia. In 2020, the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approved Chinese company Yansteel’s purchase of a 50 per cent share in the mine, which sells 100 per cent of its production to china.
The mine received a $160 million concessional loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) in 2022, a decision made despite the known defense applications of zirconium. At the time, NAIF stated demand was expected to grow from “construction, advanced manufacturing and renewable energy,” failing to mention its military uses.
The full investigation, Trading Fire, airs tonight at 8:30pm on ABC TV and is available on ABC iview.