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The global push towards net zero carbon emissions against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions and associated supply chain challenges has undoubtedly directed stakeholder attention to the need to reduce vulnerabilities associated with an over-reliance on metals and minerals from adversary nations, especially China.

Of course, the challenges of detangling supply chains and decoupling from China, which has long controlled various supply chain segments of many metals and minerals deemed critical are immense, and warrant a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to mineral resource security.

Thankfully, the United States is home to vast mineral resources. Technological advances in the context of the materials science revolution allow the mining sector to efficiently and sustainably harness this often untapped potential – and as ARPN has reported, the U.S. Government has taken several important steps to support these important efforts.

A notable example of such efforts is the series of (Defense Production Act) DPA Presidential Determinations involving specific Critical Minerals, beginning with President Trump’s July 2019 designation of the Rare Earth permanent magnet supply chain as being “essential for the national defense,” followed by President Biden’s designation of what ARPN calls the “Battery Criticals” as DPA Title III eligible in March 2022, followed by Platinum and Palladium in a DPA Presidential Determination in June 2022.  Earlier this spring, two further Presidential Determinations (February 27, 2023 Presidential Determination, and DPA Presidential Determination (2023-5)), effectively created an entirely new category of critical minerals – “Defense Criticals” as ARPN calls them – by way of designating airbreathing engines, advanced avionics navigation and guidance systems, and hypersonic systems and their “constituent materials” as priority DPA materials.

Those DPA actions, funded by Congressional appropriations, are now producing Department of Defense funded projects to encourage domestic development of these “defense criticals” and their supply chains.

Idaho-based Perpetua Resources, whose Stibnite Gold Project in central Idaho is home to one of the largest reserves of antimony – a critical mineral for which the U.S. is currently more than 80% import reliant — finds itself at the front end of DPA-funded projects. According to estimates, the project could conceivably supply about 35% of U.S. antimony demand during the first six years of production.

Having been awarded two grants of $100,000 from the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency to support efforts to evaluate whether antimony from stibnite can meet military specifications for use in munitions, Perpetua Resources later became the first recipient of a critical minerals award through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy’s Defense Production Act (DPA) Investments Program, obtaining a $24.8 million grant to complete environmental and engineering studies necessary to obtain a Final Environmental Impact Statement, a Final Record of Decision, and other ancillary permits for its Stibnite-Gold.

With analysts reporting that Perpetua Resources is on track to successfully conclude the environmental impact statement process, earlier in August the company was further awarded a Technology Investment Agreement of $15.5M to develop a wholly domestic supply chain of antimony trisulfide of military-grade Stibnite ore.

While Perpetua Resources’ antimony project is at the front end of DPA-funded projects, others are also underway.

In June of this year,  the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy (OASD(IBP)), through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) office entered into an agreement with Jervois Mining USA, a subsidiary of Jervois Global Limited, to conduct feasibility studies to expand cobalt extraction in Idaho under Defense Production Act Title III authorities. A component of munitions and aerospace alloys, cobalt is also a battery critical used in high-capacity batteries for military and commercial electric vehicles.

One month later this summer, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization office awarded Graphite One, which seeks to advance its Graphite Creek project near Nome, Alaska to provide a fully integrated North American supply chain of the battery critical graphite, for which the U.S. is also currently 100% import dependent, a $37.5M grant under DPA Title III authorities to accelerate the feasibility study for the project.

While increased domestic production for critical minerals alone may not suffice to fully solve our nation’s critical mineral woes – hence ARPN’s support for an all-of-the-above approach to mineral resource security — there are promising domestic resource development projects that can go a long way to significantly reducing vulnerabilities in the short to medium term, and ARPN will continue tracking these DoD-funded projects as they begin to bear fruit.

Against the backdrop of surging demand in the context of the green energy transition and rising geopolitical tensions, India recently stepped up its critical mineral resource policy game.

Along with releasing a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 metals and minerals considered critical for India’s clean technology goals, the country’s government announced its joining of the Mineral Security Partnership, a partnership between the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and several other countries convened in June 2022 as an initiative to bolster supply chains while aiming “to ensure that critical minerals are produced, processed, and recycled in a manner that supports countries in realizing the full economic development potential of their mineral resources.”

Now, as reported by India’s news media, the country is considering an export ban on four key metals – lithium, beryllium, niobium, and tantalum.

According to government officials, the move is a strategic decision, aimed at ensuring the country’s self-sufficiency in crucial minerals for India’s national security and technological advancements.

The announcement comes within weeks of the Indian Parliament approving a Mines and Minerals bill allowing private exploration and mining for the first time for six minerals, including the four referenced above.

Export controls are gaining in popularity as the global race for resources heats up.

Earlier this summer, China announced export restrictions on gallium and germanium, followed by controls on certain drones and drone-related equipment.

Zimbabwe banned lithium ore exports last December, and Namibia recently banned the export of unprocessed lithium and other critical minerals.

All these announcement tie into a larger trend, which has been noticeable particularly in Latin America, a region with a historic penchant for nationalism, but also elsewhere.

ARPN has featured recent nationalist moves in Chile, Mexico and Bolivia, as well as in Myanmar, Indonesia, and China, and has showcased that even in the Western world, government involvement in the critical minerals sector is on the rise.

As such, announcements like the one made by India’s government should hardly come as a surprise, but they also serve as as another reminder, as we’ve stated elsewhere, that as the U.S. and the rest of the West continue the quest to decouple from China, we will have to carefully balance domestic and global policy approaches — as well as public and private sector roles with economic and security concerns to reflect the geopolitical realities of our times.

And, as followers of ARPN well know, this can be best achieved within the context of a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach that focuses on domestic resource development where possible and leverages partnerships where needed.

A new report released this month by the Energy Transition Commission, an international think tank comprising a coalition of leaders from across the energy landscape committed to achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century, has identified supply gaps for six materials key to green energy technology and calls for increased investment in the supply chain to stave [...]

While lithium remains the poster child of the green energy transition, stakeholders and media have started to pay closer attention to the other four “battery criticals” graphite, cobalt, nickel and manganese (for more ARPN coverage click on the respective metal) — and rightfully so. However, one of the key components of 21st century renewable energy technology, copper, often continues to fly under the radar [...]

When it comes to the metals and minerals underpinning the green energy transition, Lithium, not surprisingly has become the obvious poster child. After all, one of the key technologies in the context of the EV revolution is lithium-ion battery technology. However, as followers of ARPN well know, there is more to the story, and more than [...]

It’s back to the grind. The parades, barbecues, pool parties and fireworks to mark this year’s Independence Day are over.  There’s much to be thankful for, especially at a time when the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine, now in its second year, reverberates around the globe and geopolitical tensions continue to mount. ARPN has always used [...]

As nations all across the globe scramble to secure critical mineral supply chains against the backdrop of surging demand in the context of the green energy transition and rising geopolitical tensions, India is stepping up its critical mineral resource policy game. This week, the Indian Ministry of Mines released a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 [...]

The West is getting serious about reducing its vulnerabilities against the backdrop of an increased threat of China weaponizing its control of critical materials supply chains. As the Financial Times reports, the Minerals Security Partnership, convened by the U.S. in June of 2022 which encompasses 12 countries plus the European Union, is planning to release by [...]

Graphene has long been heralded as a wonder material – almost from the time Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used scotch tape to peel individual layers of the material off a chunk of graphite in 2004.  What sounds like a 6th Grade science fair experiment won the physicists the Nobel Prize in 2010. In the dozen [...]

Resource nationalism has arrived in Africa. After Zimbabwe banned lithium ore exports last December in a move that only permits concentrates to be shipped out, Namibia has banned the export of unprocessed lithium and other critical minerals, according to Reuters. The country is largely known as a source for uranium, but also has significant deposits of lithium [...]