Critical elements are defined as those that are crucial to society for economic growth and national security, but which are vulnerable to supply disruption and have no practicable substitutions. They are usually in high demand and are often mined as companion or by-product elements making them highly valuable, vulnerable to market volatility and usually expensive. However, as supplies and societal demands change over time, minerals that are currently critical may not be in the future, and those that are not currently, may become critical with time. Critical elements tend to be central to the advanced and clean technology sectors. Nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) are two such elements.New Zealand has geologic rock types and mineral species typically associated with magmatic, ultramafic and mafic igneous rocks that are known to host Ni-Copper (Cu) Platinum Group Element (PGE) mineral systems elsewhere in the world. Two such deposit types are known to exist in New Zealand; dunitic-associated Ni-Cu and gabbroid-associated Ni-Cu deposits (Figure 1). New Zealand remains under-explored with respect to Ni and Ni-Cu deposits and is completely unexplored with respect to Co, which has a genetic relationship to these same deposit types and elsewhere in the world is mined as a companion metal. CITATION: Durance, P M J, Hill, M P, Turnbull, R E, Morgenstern, R, Rattenbury, M S and Smillie, R W, 2019. Understanding the mineral potential for critical elements in New Zealand: the case for nickel and cobalt, in Proceedings PACRIM 2019, pp 278282 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).