Our team at BHP Nickel West in Western Australia recently welcomed His Excellency Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan and The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Prime Minister of Australia to our Kwinana nickel operations, south of Perth.

The group took a walking tour of the operations covering the nickel sulphate processing plant and finished in packaging, where they saw our nickel products at the end of the value chain, heading out to export and global battery markets.

We highlighted that this was Australia’s first nickel sulphate plant – with customers including leading auto and battery makers in Japan.

We aim to make our nickel products sustainably and we are actively working with our partners in Japan on supply chain transparency and identifying ways to lower carbon in the Japanese battery supply chain.

BHP and Japan have a long-term relationship and we have been reliably supplying Japan for more than half a century. We opened our first office in Tokyo in 1965, our first shipment of coal was sent in 1968 and the first shipment of iron ore in 1969.

Today, BHP supplies iron ore, coal, copper and nickel, to our Japanese customers and have partnerships on a number of projects, within our existing mining operations as well as sustainability initiatives.

We are honoured to have played a role in supporting Japan’s own economic growth, and its contribution to the global economy over decades.

The customers and suppliers we work with in Japan are forward thinking on decarbonisation – across steelmaking, shipping, and electric vehicles and batteries.

As the world faces head on the threat posed by climate change and the need for decarbonisation, never has the importance of this partnership been more relevant.