Milewski points to Russia having fired an estimated 11 million artillery shells in 2022, the majority of which can contain – depending on shell and manufacturing process – at least an estimate 0.5kg of copper. This, he says would amount to 5,500 tons of copper, or the equivalent of copper used in 1,170 wind turbines.

Copper demand is already forecast to increase by more than 100% by 2035 with many analysts warning there may not be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades after years of underinvestment in the mining industry and falling ore grades.  And those projections, according to Milewski, do not account for surging military demand against the backdrop of increasing geopolitical volatility around the globe.

Of course, copper is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. According to the National Mining Association, the U.S. Department of Defense uses nearly 750,000 tons of minerals on an annual basis – a number that was calculated around 2016/2017 at a time when the U.S. was not facing any major conflicts.

Fast-forward to 2024 and the U.S. is supporting allies in the Ukraine and Israel while the situation in the Taiwan Strait looks increasing vulnerable.  Meanwhile, particularly ammunition stockpiles are running so low that NATO officials have warned that Western militaries are scraping “the bottom of the barrel” forcing NATO to provide Ukraine with supplies not from full warehouses, but rather “half-full or lower warehouses in Europe.”

The issue is compounded by the fact that production time to rebuild weaponry stocks can take anywhere between three and 18 years, depending on equipment according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies – however that analysis focuses only on manufacturing and production times.

As followers of ARPN well know, supply chains for the metals and minerals underpinning U.S. military technology and munitions are “extremely vulnerable” due to a perennial over-reliance on supplies from adversary nations, i.e. China.

For all the talk about decoupling supply chains in recent years, the needle has not moved much, and the latest USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries still has the U.S. 100% import reliant for 12 metals and minerals, while an additional 29 critical mineral commodities had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption — a small drop by two over last year’s report.

However, some important steps have been taken in recent years, and are beginning to bear fruit. Milewski lists several military budget ramp-ups to “try and resolve the massive shortfall.”

As ARPN previously outlined, 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.

Milewski highlights the following:

• Graphite: a $37.5 million agreement between the DoD and Graphite One (Alaska) to fast-track a domestic graphite mine;
• Antimony: two awards — $24.8 million and $15.5 million — by the DoD to Perpetua Resources to secure a domestic source of antimony [an additional conditional award of up to $34.6 million under the existing Technology Investment Agreement was announced earlier this week];
•  Lithium: a $90million agreement to secure lithium production between the DoD and Abermarle;
• Nickel: a US $20.6 million agreement between the DoD and Talon Nickel to increase domestic nickel production.

He closes:

“We see the U.S. military shifting its position and capacity to secure its critical mineral supply gaining more momentum than it has for arguably the past 30 years. However, the U.S. military is America’s largest government agency, and it will take time.”

However, with conflict brewing in many parts of the world, time is a luxury we do not have, and strengthening critical mineral supply chains should be a key priority for policy stakeholders in 2024.

The post U.S. Military Faces Compounding Problems – Surging Tensions, Depleted Stockpiles, Critical Mineral Supply Chain Challenges appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Last year, we noted that our coverage of the report coincided with Groundhog Day, February 2^nd.  And just like in the Bill Murray classic movie, in which the clock jumps back to the same day all over again every morning, the Critical Mineral movie appeared to bring us back to a situation of ongoing deep dependency on foreign sourced metals and minerals every year – at least in recent memory.

This year, we’re once again back with a look at the report, and, lo and behold, it’s Groundhog Day all over again – and by the looks of it not only with regards to the date, but also in terms of what we’re seeing, especially on one of the most telling charts of the report – the depiction of U.S. Net Import Reliance, or “Blue Wall of Dependency” as we have dubbed it based on the many blue bars showing our significant degree of import dependence.

While there are some changes from last year’s report, the number of metals and minerals for which we are 100% import dependent stayed the same at 15.  The the number of metals and minerals for which we are 50% or more import-dependent has dropped slightly, after having gone up over the year before — with the new report pegging it at 49 versus 51 in 2023 and 47 in 2022.

When cross-referencing the U.S. Net Import Reliance chart with the 2022 Final list of Critical Minerals, the United States was 100% net import reliant for 12, and an additional 29 critical mineral commodities (including 14 Rare Earth lanthanides, which are listed under rare earths) had a net import reliance greater than 50% of apparent consumption — a small drop by two over last year’s report.

Once more, ARPN  can’t help but observe that the trendlines represent a stark contrast to U.S. import reliance for metals and minerals in 1984, when we were 100% import reliant for just 11 mineral commodities.

A few changes for individual metals and minerals included in the report are notable and significant, particularly in the context of the accelerating global green energy transition:

For the Rare Earths, a key group of tech metals underpinning 21st Century technology and the accelerating green energy transition, our import reliance had dropped from 100% in the 2021 report to “greater than 90%” in the 2022 report.  Last year’s report had, this number back up to “greater than 95%” and it remains at the same level in this year’s report, with rare earth concentrate being extracted in the U.S. currently sent to China for separation.  Once again, a single link lacking in a supply chain continues U.S. dependency.

For Lithium, perhaps the most frequently cited battery tech mineral, and Cobalt, another one of Lithium’s “battery critical” peers, U.S. import reliance stayed the same at “greater than 25%” for lithium, while Cobalt’s number dropped from 76% to 69%.

For Graphite and Manganese, both battery criticals – the USGS report shows both still pegged at an unchanged 100% import reliance, unchanged from last year.

For Nickel, the final battery critical and a new element on the 2022 Critical Mineral List, import-reliance saw a small jump from 56% last year to 57% in this year’s report, after a more significant jump the year before (from 48% to 56%).

Import reliance for Platinum represents one of the biggest changes over last year’s report, which had the metal pegged at 66%. That number increased to 84 percent in the 2024 report.

Another change worth mentioning is the upward trajectory for Copper import reliance. In the 2010s, import reliance for Copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent, but in recent years, that number has gone up.  This year’s report has it pegged at 46%, up from 41% in the 2023 report.  This development that may be of particular relevance as in 2024, the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List is up for another update, on the 3-year timetable codified in federal law, and in spite of the metal’s inarguable growing importance in the context of decarbonization efforts and expert warnings that there may not be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades, the material has to date been left off the whole-of-government list. Congressional efforts to change this may have not succeeded in 2023, but the Department of Energy designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment, further raising the material’s clout.

As in previous iterations of the report, China continues to be the elephant in the data room. And against all pledges in recent years for the United States to reduce import reliance on supplies from China, the 2023 Mineral Commodity Summaries lists China 24 times as one of the major import sources of metals and minerals for which our net import reliance is 50% or greater (which is down by one over last year) – and for all the talk about decoupling supply chains from China and against the backdrop of the escalating trade and tech wars between Beijing and Washington (see our coverage here), this continues to be a concern.

Like last year’s report, this year’s Mineral Commodity Summaries report features an expanded chapter on developments in the critical minerals realm, identifying trend lines, and supply chain security and U.S. government critical minerals initiatives as well as critical mineral investments.

Last year we noted that “while the urgency of the need to secure critical mineral supply chains has registered with stakeholders over the past few years, USGS’s findings underscore once more that supply chains in the 21st Century are extremely complex and meaningful change takes time – and the developments of 2022 ranging from increased resource nationalism in the Southern hemisphere over war in Ukraine to rising geopolitical tensions have not made untangling supply chains any easier.”

Since then, the stakes have only gotten higher as geopolitical tensions continue to rise and U.S.-Chinese relations appear to sour, but ARPN’s basic assessment of the situation stays the same.

So, with the report revealing more of the same, and in true Groundhog Day fashion, we revisit last year’s post, in which we stated:

“In Bill Murray’s movie, it took the protagonist several years to realize how to change behavior to break the cycle.  We know by now that to break our cycle of resource dependence, it will take a comprehensive ‘all of the above’ approach to critical mineral resource policy – and stakeholders have come to realize this and have increasingly embraced the concept.  We continue to stand by what ARPN’s Dan McGroarty stated during a congressional hearing in 2019 – ‘we can’t admire the problem anymore. We don’t have the luxury of time.’

If we act swiftly and comprehensively, there may just be a chance that we will wake up twelve months from now not to another Groundhog Day, but to a 2024 Mineral Commodity Summaries that paints a picture of reduced resource dependence.”

2024’s report was not the one to paint that picture, but in light of recent policy developments (see our recap of 2023 here and refer to page 18 – 22 of the report), there is still hope we will be getting closer by the time next year’s Groundhog Day rolls around.  Meanwhile, with apologies to Punxsutawney Phil’s cheery forecast of an early spring, ARPN is projecting another long winter ahead of Critical Mineral foreign dependency.

The post Groundhog Day All Over Again in Spite of Rising Pressures? USGS Releases Annual Mineral Commodity Summaries Report appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

As ARPN noted in 2023, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is preparing to invest billions of dollars into the mining sector to harness the potential of more than $1.3 trillion worth of metals and minerals the Saudi government claims are buried in the kingdom in the context of his Grand Vision 2030 plan to transform the Saudi economy.  If successful, he would make mining the so-called “third pillar” of the economy next to oil and gas.

More specifically, the kingdom is looking to secure access to materials ranging from the battery criticals to other 21^stcentury tech metals which are to be processed by new refineries and smelters to feed a “wider industrial network” across the country.

But what does Saudi Arabia’s “plunge into the world of mining” mean for the rest of the world, and especially the United States and its allies?

Thomas Biesheuvel, writing for Bloomberg’s Energy Daily, believes that the emergence of Saudi Arabia will make it “even harder for the U.S., Europe and Japan to secure the battery minerals they want.”

Says Biesheuvel:

“Saudia Arabia crashed into the world mining scene in the middle of last year with a $2.6 billion deal to buy 10% of Vale SA’s base metal unit, beating off competition from Qatar and Japan in the process.

It’s looking to buy more stakes in foreign mining operations through Manara Minerals Investment Co., a vehicle established by the kingdom’s powerful sovereign wealth fund and Saudi Arabian Mining Co. In doing so, it wants to secure metal offtake in return.”

Biesheuvel argues the model is similar to one long deployed by Japan’s commodity trading houses, but Saudi Arabia’s Mantra is state backed, and can “deploy capital with long-term strategic goals in mind.”

He concludes:

“That poses a challenge for countries such as the US, which is rushing to catch up. There have been suggestions the nation could piggyback off Saudi ambitions to secure its own supplies — essentially subcontracting out the heavy lifting.  But Saudi Arabia’s focus is to develop its own industry, and it’s becoming clearer that it will work with any country that helps achieve those goals.”

Reports in the fall of 2023 indicated that auctions for exploration licenses in the kingdom had only attracted smaller players thus far, but ARPN posited at the time that the crown prince’s willingness to take commercial risks might draw in the big players before long.  The buzz around this month’s Future Minerals Forum clearly points in this direction.

Saudi Arabia has clearly taken note that we are leaving the Petro Age, and is taking steps to position itself in a post-Petro Tech Metals Age.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has taken several positive steps to strengthen domestic supply chains, but, with the U.S.-Chinese trade war showing signs of intensifying and other players — like Saudi Arabia — making an emphatic entrance onto the world stage of the resource wars, it is time to cast aside simplistic “not in my backyard,” or “keep it all in the ground” mantras that still appear to hamper U.S. resolve, and to push forward with a comprehensive all-of-the-above critical mineral resource strategy.

The post Saudi Arabia Makes Emphatic Entrance onto Critical Minerals Stage — With Implications for U.S. and Allies appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

– A Look at 2023
Through the Prism of Critical Mineral Resource Policy - 

In the waning days of December 2022, ARPN and others were gearing up for a watershed year in the critical minerals realm – a year which could be a “breaking point if there is to be an EV revolution/transformation,” and one that would give us a glimpse into the new world order in the Post Petro Age in which the sands of geopolitics have shifted.

We set out to track the following themes, all of which we found to be intertwined:

• A focus on the Super Criticals (see our Year in Review post for more info);
• the growing importance of geopolitics, with China taking center stage and alliances and partnerships continuing to be forged to reduce reliance on Beijing;
• the acceleration of the green energy transition which will require vast amounts of critical minerals;
• as well as industry’s efforts to sustainably green our future by harnessing the materials science revolution.

As we close out 2023 with ARPN’s annual attempt to take stock of what has happened on the critical mineral resources front in the past 12 months — to assess where we are, and, filled with hope for a New Year, where we are headed – we believe we picked the right themes.

2023 – Enter the Post-Petro Tech Age?

Early 2023

Geopolitics certainly took center stage on the critical minerals front with the Russia/Ukraine war continuing to place a strain on global supply chains and resource nationalism gaining a bigger foothold in particularly the Southern hemisphere.

As Peter Schechter and Juan Cortiñas had outlined in a February 2022 piece for Marsh McLennan’s Brink News ARPN featured at the time, the shunning of laissez-faire economics, particularly in Latin America, is not new. “What’s different this time,” they say, “is that these new interventionist policies are not only focused on the traditional energy sector. Instead, the region’s attention is turning to increasingly valuable minerals that are key to the new green economy quickly gaining momentum across the world.”  

Resource Nationalism 

In early 2023, we saw this trend play out in Chile, where President Gabriel Boric announced his plan to nationalize the country’s lithium industry to boost the Latin American nation’s industrial base and protect the environment.  While his plan fell short of full nationalization, observers called Boric’s announcement a “shock move”  – but it was one that tied into an overall trend in the region:

Chile’s move came on the heels of a comprehensive lithium nationalization plan enacted by Mexico which culminated in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador signing a decree handing over responsibility for lithium reserves to the country’s energy ministry in February of this year.

Bolivia’s ruling socialists have also favored state control over the nation’s vast untapped mineral resources but are relying on Chinese partners to harness them.

Meanwhile, some speculated at the time that had it not been for his ouster, Peru’s President Pedro Castillo, who won a narrow victory in 2021 and had initially pledged to nationalize much of the country’s mining sector, might have pursued an approach similar to Boric’s in Chile.

The moves tied into a bigger trend, as indicated by prior similar developments in Indonesia, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

 Tech War Theaters – Semiconductors and Critical Minerals 

Meanwhile, the Tech Wars between China and the West continued to intensify, and Western nations began taking steps to counter Chinese dominance in the critical minerals realm.

A key theater of the Tech Wars had emerged: Semiconductors, which have become indispensable components for a broad range of electronic devices. Semiconductors have been dubbed the “DNA of technology” which has “transformed essentially all segments of the economy” and are critical to national security where they enable the “development and fielding of advanced weapons systems and control toe operation of the nation’s critical infrastructure,” as the Department of Commerce-led chapter in the Biden Administration’s 100 Day Supply Chain Review report outlines.

While the U.S. took steps to impose new export controls to China’s access to advanced computing chips, its ability to develop and maintain super computers and manufacture semiconductors in 2022, Washington’s allies in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia also took steps to reduce Chinese influence in their critical mineral industries. The governments of the Netherlands and Japan announced their intention to emulate the U.S. export controls in March.

A late 2022 proposal to bolster the Investment Canada Act (ICA) to empower government ministers to block or unwind critical mineral investments if these are considered as a threat to national security, considered a defensive measure against China which has invested $7 billion in Canada’s base metals sector in the past two decades, was expected to be finalized in the spring.

Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers in early 2022 blocked a request by a Chinese company to boost its investment in Australian REE company Northern Minerals via a prevention order, the first move of this kind since the Treasurer had expressed concerns over the “concentrated nature of the China-dominated critical minerals supply chain” elevated by the Russia-Ukraine war, and a move that some considered a “sign of what’s to come.”

West Bolsters Domestic Supply Chains 

While these steps were taken to reduce Chinese influence over domestic industries, the West also stepped up efforts to strengthen its own critical mineral policies and sectors.

The European Union released its long-awaited action plan to “ensure the EU’s access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials” on March 16. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA)  includes a comprehensive set of actions aimed at shoring up European critical mineral supply chains by streamlining the permitting process for raw materials projects and allowing for selected “Strategic Projects” to benefit from support for access to financing and shorter permitting timelines (24 months for extraction permits and 12 months for processing and recycling permits).  The Act – which was finalized later in the year, also requires EU member states to develop national programs for resource exploration.

Australia also forged ahead with its push to strengthen critical mineral supply chains for its own industries and for the benefit of its partners with the federal government in Canberra releasing guidelines for “new grants to help develop Australia’s critical minerals sector, support downstream processing, create jobs across regional Australia and support global efforts to achieve net-zero” in early 2023.

The Canadian government, which had launched the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy in December of 2022 backed by up to $3.8 billion in funding, announced details on the implementation and a first round of funding for new critical minerals programs and initiatives.

The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), an initiative to bolster critical mineral supply chains while ensuring that “critical minerals are produced, processed and recycled in a manner that supports the ability of countries to realize the full economic development benefit of their geological endowments”  took its collaboration to the next level by formalizing and agreeing on guiding principles for how the MSP will develop projects around the world with local value-add, sustainability, and high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards front and center. Meetings were followed by bilateral trade agreements as well as U.S.-EU discussions to launch a “critical minerals club.”

And stateside, U.S. President Joe Biden once more invoked Title III of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to strengthen critical mineral supply chains – and in doing so, effectively created a new category of Critical Materials – which ARPN has dubbed the Defense Criticals (see our post here). His February 27, 2023 Presidential Determination was followed by another DPA Presidential Determination (2023-5), designating airbreathing engines, advanced avionics navigation and guidance systems, and hypersonic systems and their “constituent materials” as priority DPA materials.

Mid 2023

We posited in early 2023, that against the backdrop of surging demand and geopolitical volatility, we could expect to see more active government involvement in the critical minerals sector – and the coming months certainly delivered.

China Tightens Export Ratches as West Gets Reality Check on Decoupling

In July, China upped the ante in the Tech Wars by placing export restrictions on gallium and germanium – key components of semiconductor, defense and solar technologies. Beijing’s move was considered a “show of force ahead of economic talks between two rivals that increasingly set trade rules to achieve technological dominance,” according to the Wall Street Journal. As Alastair Neill, board member of the Critical Minerals Institute, told the Wall Street Journal: “If you don’t send high-end chips to China, China will respond by not sending you the high-performance elements you need for those chips.” 

While some chipmakers downplayed fears of shortages, former Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Wei Jianguo’s comments to the China Daily newspaper “that countries should brace for more should they continue to pressure China, describing the controls as a ‘well-thought-out heavy punch’ and ‘just a start,’”  prompted fears that more export curbs on critical materials, including on rare earths could be on the menu, and analysts called for  big investments on the part of the United States and its partners to reduce their reliance on China.

Later that month, China announced a new set of export controls — this one on certain drones and drone-related equipment — to “safeguard national security interests,” only to follow it up with restrictions on graphite later in October. The decision to require export permits for certain graphite products was seen by analysts as a play “to control supplies of critical minerals in response to challenges over its global manufacturing dominance.”

China’s moves also underscored the massive challenge of decoupling for Western nations.  In the case of graphite, which is the largest component by volume and mass in EV batteries and has been deemed the “unsung player” in the battery supply chain, China “is on track to retain over 85% of the global anode market share by the end of the decade,” according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

While momentum to decouple was continuing to build, a new report by the consultancy Rhodium Group and the German Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) pointed to the real-world challenges of decoupling from China from a European perspective:

European national governments and the EU may have worked to devise policies to strengthen domestic and regional critical mineral supply chains, but Chinese companies continued to invest in the region: Overall, Chinese foreign direct investment in the EU and the UK dropped, but, as Mary Hui writes for Quartz, “for the first time since 2008, the value of Chinese greenfield investments have exceeded that of M&A flows,” and was “mainly driven by several large-scale initiatives by Chinese battery giants to build factories in Germany, Hungary, the UK, and France.”

As the Rhodium report determined, “Europe has become a key part of China’s global electric vehicle expansions,” adding that “[b]attery investments are now the mainstay of Chinese investment in Europe.” The emerging conundrum is not lost on EU policy makers, who resolved to formally “recalibrate” the EU’s China policy, with an emphasis on “de-risking” by screening investments more closely and resorting to more robust export controls.

The West’s resolve to break China’s dominance may be building, but as Christina Lu wrote for Foreign Policy:

“(…) there are more questions than answers about how these efforts will pan out. As lawmakers continue to hammer out new agreements behind closed doors, it remains unclear how they align with global trading rules and what this momentum means for countries that lack free trade agreements with the United States. Engineering supply chains isn’t as simple as finding new mines, either; it involves an entire ecosystem of processing, refining, and manufacturing capabilities.”

The Rise of Geopolitical Swing States

As the West continued to assess its options against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China leveraging its advantage in the Tech Wars, a new class of states have entered the spotlight in the context of the global geopolitical realignment – the “geopolitical swing states,” as Goldman Sachs’s Jared Cohen suggested this June, and their role could grow exponentially in the coming years.

Cohen defines a geopolitical swing state as “critical to the world economy and balance of power” but without “the capacity by themselves to drive the global agenda, at least for now.” He adds that “as long as the tensions between the U.S. and China continue to get worse, they will have outsized abilities to navigate geopolitical competition and take advantage of and influence it.” 

According to Cohen, there are four – often overlapping — categories of geopolitical swing states:

• Countries with a competitive advantage in a critical aspect of global supply chains;
• Countries with a unique ability to make themselves attractive for nearshoring, offshoring, or friend-shoring;
• Countries with a disproportionate amount of capital and willingness to deploy it around the world in pursuit of strategic objectives; and
• Countries with developed economies and leaders who have global visions that they pursue within certain constraints.

As Cohen concluded, “[t]he rise of geopolitical swing states may balance the great powers and help stabilize the global order. Their interest-based decision-making could be a source of consistency in uncertain times. Or their newfound prominence may increase global instability by putting more actors and variables in play. But even if today’s world is not yet multipolar, a rising group of countries recognize that they can determine the course of world events. Those geopolitical swing states are aware that their power may be unsustainable, or event fleeting and they are determined to take advantage of the current window of opportunity.”

While the rise of the geopolitical swing states has business implications for multinational businesses and investors, these trendlines are have real-world implications for U.S. stakeholders from a policy perspective, and, in the critical mineral resource realm, underscore the importance of a comprehensive all-of-the-above approach to securing critical mineral resource supply chains.

Fall/Winter 2023 

Critical Mineral Focus Grows, New Players Emerge

Meanwhile, real world challenges associated with securing supplies for the metals and minerals underpinning 21st Century technology prompted more countries to emphasize supply chain security and define their own sets of metals and minerals critical to their own domestic industries.

Perhaps most consequential in light of the fact that it has overtaken China as the most populous country in the world this year, may be India’s push onto the global critical minerals stage.  Following the release of a comprehensive Critical Minerals List, consisting of 30 metals and minerals deemed critical for India’s ambition for cleaner technologies in electronics, telecommunications, transport and defense, in the summer, along with a pledge to encourage public and private investment in exploration, mining and processing to secure the country’s critical mineral supply chains, India announced its consideration of an export ban on four key metals – lithium, beryllium, niobium and tantalum – in a move to ensure the country’s self-sufficiency in crucial minerals for India’s national security and technological advancements. In late November, the Indian government announced its first ever auction of critical mineral leases for commercial mining by the private sector.

But another player has arrived – perhaps in another indication that we have indeed entered the Post-Petro Tech Metals Age: Saudi Arabia.

As part of his Grand Vision 2030 plan to transform the Saudi economy, the oil giant’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is preparing to invest billions of dollars into the mining sector to harness the potential of more than $1.3 trillion worth of metals and minerals the Saudi government claims are buried in the kingdom, and effectively make mining the so-called “third pillar” of the economy next to oil and gas. Rumors of a deal with Tesla have been swirling, even though they have been denied by Elon Musk himself.

Analysts say that while the crown prince’s plans are met with plenty of skepticism, even if only partially successful, implications of Saudi Arabia turning into a metals hub could have far-reaching implications not just for metals mining, but geopolitics and trade, especially if the other component of the crown prince’s plan to buy up resources from elsewhere to be refined and processed at new facilities in Saudi Arabia.

As Bloomberg reports, the kingdom’s long game is to position itself as an alternative supplier to China for the metals and minerals underpinning the green energy shift and 21st Century technologies.  The news outlet cites Khalid Al Mudaifer, vice minister of mining affairs, who said in an interview that “Saudi Arabia needs more than one engine to achieve its vision,” and that to transform itself into an economic and industrial powerhouse, the kingdom needs minerals.

Global Tensions Mount – Gaza and Tech War Confrontation

If the watershed moment for geopolitics in 2022 was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this year’s defining moment was probably the Hamas-led incursion from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of neighboring Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, which initiated the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. Throwing a wrench into arguably efforts to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East, the conflict threatens domestic stability in many states in the region and has exposed the deep-rooted nature of obstacles to normalization.

While China has claimed neutrality and has called on both sides to exercise restraint, China, while criticizing Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza in response to the incursion, but never officially condemned the initial attack started by Hamas. Experts believe that the Israel-Hamas war is viewed in Beijing as a convenient opportunity to gain ground against the United States in the battle for influence in the Arab world, as tensions between China and the West, and specifically the U.S. continue to mount. 

As Hot Wars Rage, All Arrows Point to Escalation of Tech War 

 With hot wars raging in Central Europe and the Middle East, the question is, do we have bandwidth to focus on a war that’s metaphorical – for now, at least:  The Tech War pitting China versus the U.S.?

While the recent meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco last month was seen by some as a step towards alleviating tension between the two global powers, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo’s latest speech and subsequent comments at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California left no doubt that, at least on the trade front, all arrows very much point to confrontation.

The Secretary did not mince words, stating: “(…) make no mistake about it, China’s not our friend, and we need to be eyes wide open about the extent of that threat. I am ready to win, and I’m ready to do that with all of you, but it’s time to open our aperture and challenge the way we’ve done business in every way if we’re going to meet the threat China poses.”

When asked if there were other U.S. origin products or types of technologies that the U.S. Government was “looking at in a similar fashion right now” – i.e. would consider imposing export controls on, she said:

“Absolutely, in biotechnology, AI models, AI products, cloud computing, supercomputing. So short answer is yes.”

Unsurprisingly, China has already voiced criticism of Raimondo’s comments with officials lamenting the “Cold War mentality” on the part of the U.S. which showed its “desire for hegemony.”

Diplomatic efforts to improve ties between the countries in the wake of Raimondo’s remarks may continue but to the keen observer it appears all but certain at this point that we’ll be seeing a further escalation of the Tech Wars in the coming months, with the export control ratchet playing a central role.

The question is, which critical mineral will find itself in the crosshairs this time. 

Turning the Same Stone Twice

With more confrontation on the horizon, there are some silver linings, thankfully.  Not only are domestic policy stakeholders more attuned to the critical minerals challenge and are working on policy solutions including permitting reform, the mining industry itself has been stepping up its game.

In their quest to secure critical mineral supply chains against the backdrop of surging demand and rising geopolitical pressures, stakeholders are leaving no stone unturned – quite literally — and have in fact begun turning the same stone twice, harnessing the materials science revolution to unlock minerals that were previously bound up, and extracting minerals from unconventional sources such as rock piles and tailings.

In 2023, ARPN featured several of these initiatives:

• The “Atlas of Australian Mine Waste”, an Australian government mapping project of sites containing mine waste with reprocessing potential,
• The USGS’s solicitation for proposals for FY2023 grants to collect data on mine waste using funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in the context of the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), in the context of which more than $5.8 million will go towards mapping critical-mineral resources in Alaska in partnership with the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys. Minerals included in the context of USGS and the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Survey research projects Alaska are: Arsenic, antimony, bismuth, cobalt, graphite, indium, platinum group metals, rare earth elements, tantalum, tellurium and tin.
• Australia-based New Century Resources current operation of the largest tailings retreatment operation at its zinc tailings retreatment operation in Queensland,
• A Reuters lists of six major projects outside of China aimed at extracting the critical minerals from waste or byproducts, including Iluka Resources Ltd’s and VHM Ltd’s operations in Australia, Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd’s endeavor in northeast South Africa, Swedish state-owned LKAB’s plans to extract REEs from two existing mines, and two U.S. operations:

• Phoenix Tailings, a privately held U.S. company plans to launch operations using waste materials from a former iron ore mine in New York using its own processing technology.

• U.S. Energy Fuels, originally focused on uranium production, started acquiring monazite, a byproduct of mineral sands, to extract REEs with plans to open its own separation plant by 2024.

• Global miner Rio Tinto’s production of tellurium at its Kennecott copper operation in Utah, where roughly 20 tons of the material are generated from by-product streams generated during the copper refining process; and the company’s partnership with CR Minerals Co. LLC to extract a material called pozzolans from Rio Tinto’s Boron California operations, which can be substituted for or combined with cement to decarbonization construction materials. Meanwhile, in Canada, the miner is producing scandium from titanium waste, becoming the first North American producer of scandium in the process.
• The October 2023 Fortune Minerals/Rio Tinto announcement of a collaboration to develop technology to improve the recovery of cobalt and bismuth from co-product streams of minerals recovered at Rio Tinto’s Kennecott smelter in Utah which will be processed at Fortune Minerals’s smelter operations.

As the materials science revolution marches on and continues to unlock new technologies allowing for the safe and commercially viable recovery of mine waste tailings, harnessing this – to date largely untapped — potential could play a significant role in a comprehensive “all-of-the-above” approach to bolstering critical mineral supply chains.

U.S. Supply Chain Initiative, Plan to Release National Defense Industrial Strategy

On the policy front, the Biden Administration recently announced new steps to bolster supply chains for U.S. domestic industries. One highly anticipated component with implications for the critical minerals sector is the Department of Defense’s release of a first ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), which, according to the White House, “will guide engagement, policy development, and investment in the defense industrial base over the next three to five years.”

2023 – Metals in Focus

From Battery Criticals to Defense Criticals, and Copper’s Rising Star

In keeping with last year’s trend lines, ARPN-dubbed Battery Criticals – Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, Nickel and Manganese – continued to dominate the critical minerals discourse (along with the Rare Earths) against the backdrop of surging needs of the green energy transition.

See our coverage of these materials here.

As previously outlined, however, President Biden’s invocation of Title III of the DPA effectively created a new category of Critical Materials – which ARPN has dubbed the Defense Criticals – a whopping list of 35:

See our post with more context here.  

Meanwhile, one mainstay metal’s star has continued to rise in 2023 – Copper. 

Copper prices may have dropped, however demand for the metal, which is not only a key mainstay metal, but also an indispensable component in green energy technology, is expected to increase drastically to keep pace with the material requirements of the global push towards net zero carbon emissions.

According to the Financial Times, its growing application in this field will result “in it being dubbed the ‘metal of electrification’, with forecasts that it will double to a 50mn tonne market by 2035 compared with 2021 levels, according to S&P Global, which predicts a ‘chronic gap’ between supply and demand.”

While U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

Miners are pointing out that a confluence of complex permitting timelines, rising inflation and the fact that the commodity is “harder to find in high quantities in the ground” may have led to a situation “where it’s likely there won’t be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades.”

While Copper is a key component of technology in the context of decarbonization efforts, the material was left off the overall U.S. government’s critical minerals list. Congressional efforts to change this may have not succeeded in 2023, but the Department of Energy designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment, further raising the material’s clout.

Meanwhile, on December 16, 2023, the Australian government released an update to its list of critical minerals deemed essential to the nation’s energy and security requirements, and also released a new Strategic Materials List of commodities with plans to scope the creation of Strategic Critical Minerals Hubs around the country.   Bearing testimony to the material’s strategic and economic value, Copper made the Australian Government’s Strategic Materials list (along with nickel, aluminum, phosphorus, tin and zinc), a list that identifies commodities which, while not currently considered at risk of supply chain disruption, are essential for the energy transition and the Australian government “will continue supporting the extraction and processing of these minerals and monitoring their market developments.”

It remains to be seen whether the Australian developments will provide a further boost to U.S. domestic efforts to afford copper Critical Mineral status, but it is clear that with or without government action, the material’s star is not going to fade anytime soon.

Conclusion

Time may tell whether 2023 was in fact a watershed year in the critical minerals realm. It appears that we have indeed entered to Post-Petro Tech Age, and it was certainly a year in which tensions between two key global players – the U.S. and China – have reached new heights. Whether or not China overplays its hand in the long run is almost beside the point, as, in the short- to medium term its chokehold in the sector is strong, and we know that the country does not shy away from confrontation.   To not fall behind in the Tech War, decoupling the West’s critical mineral supply chains from China must be the name of the game.

As the West continues this quest, a wary realization appears to have emerged — that the need to coordinate Critical Mineral policy coexists with the growing awareness that even increased supply of essential metals and minerals may not keep pace with rising demand.

How the U.S. and its allies navigate this new resource relationship – multiplied across several score of Critical Minerals – may be one of the principal commercial, diplomatic and national security challenges of this century, and will be a guiding question for 2024.

The post ARPN’s Year in Review – 2023 appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

And while your Thanksgiving-focused brain may trick you into believing the infographic you see here represents the proportions of turkey to sides, Visual Capitalist has put together an important reminder for those working in the realm of mineral resource policy, and quite frankly, everyone else.

Using USGS data, the infographic (click here for a full-size look and the underlying data) visualizes the entirety of the 2.8 billion tonnes of metals mined in 2022 worldwide.

Comprising 93% of the global mined total, the metals mining landscape is clearly dominated by iron ore. In 2022, 2.6 billion tonnes of the material were mined, with 98% of the ore dedicated to steelmaking.

The second tier of the infographic comprises the industrial metals, which accounted for 185,111,835 tonnes of mined content in 2022, representing 6.5% of all metals mined last year.   Of these, aluminum accounted for nearly 40% of global production.

Meanwhile the transformative tech metals – as ARPN has called them — the Battery Criticals and Defense Criticals – only account for less than 1% of all the metals mined globally in 2022.

While this may come as a surprise to a layman – after all Critical Minerals are making frequent headlines these days largely fueled by the green energy transition and supply chain challenges exacerbated by geopolitical and trade issues – followers of ARPN well know what these key building blocks of 21stCentury technology “punch well above their weight” – both figuratively and literally.

They say visualization — essentially seeing with the mind’s eye or hearing with the mind’s ear – can be a powerful tool to reinforce concepts that can help you “understand complex information and make better decisions.”

Here’s hoping stakeholders seeing this infographic feel prompted to make “better decisions” to swiftly devise policies to incentivize these formerly minor metals and minerals that have such a major impact on the technologies transforming our world.

Recent developments show – see our most recent coverage of China cranking its critical mineral export control ratchet here and here – our adversaries won’t wait for our food coma and tryptophan to wear off as they escalate the Tech Wars.

The post Tech Metals, the Building Blocks of the 21st Century, “Punch Well Above Their Weight” – A Visual appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

According to Nikkei, as part of the new restrictions, which will be in place until the end of October of 2025, the commerce department has added rare earths, including compounds and alloys to its “list of mineral resources and other items requiring disclosure of information such as material type and export destinations.”

The move ties into an overall context of export controls are gaining in popularity as the global race for resources heats up. India joined the ranks of countries considering export restrictions this August, and Kenya made similar headlines in October.  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.

Of course, in light of Beijing’s dominating role in critical mineral supply chains and the current state of global affairs, China’s announcements relating to critical mineral export restrictions are not only highly consequential for U.S. domestic industry stakeholders, but must also be viewed through the prism of geopolitics, and as such U.S. national and economic security.

As Nikkei outlines, the U.S. has in recent years worked with Western allies to tighten exports of top-end semiconductors and chipmaking equipment to China, prompting Beijing to respond by considering banning “exports of manufacturing technology for high-performance magnets and other products that use rare earths” at the end of 2022.

Earlier this summer, China announced export restrictions on gallium and germanium, followed by controls on certain drones and drone-related equipment.  On October 20th, Beijing tightened the export control ratchet further – this time by announcing that to protect national security, the country require export permits for certain graphite products – a move analysts see as a play “to control supplies of critical minerals in response to challenges over its global manufacturing dominance.”

From a functional perspective, Chinese restrictions now extend to three of the key tech building blocs of the 21^st century:

-       Semiconductors (gallium/germanium)

-       Lithium-ion battery technology (graphite)

-       Permanent magnets (REEs)

As geopolitical tensions soar, this may not be the end of it. As ARPN stated before:

“As China ratchets up its export control regime (…) U.S. stakeholders would be well-advised to kick their efforts to bolster U.S. critical mineral supply chains into high gear.   For China – a ‘country of concern’ as per an August 9, 2023 Executive Order - it may be a short step from export controls to export embargoes.”

The post Gallium, Germanium, Graphite… and Now REEs – China Further Tightens Critical Mineral Export Restriction Ratchet appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Earlier this month, in a letter to Biden Administration officials, U.S. Senators registered their concerns regarding media reports of a potential “limited free trade” agreement between the United States and Indonesia – sometimes dubbed the “nickel capital of the world” — on critical minerals in the context of the Administration’s effort to expand the number of countries to qualify for the tax credits afforded under the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Senators argued that forging ahead with negotiations with Indonesia without having developed a comprehensive accounting of domestic sourcing options, and the opportunities from countries with which the U.S. already has trade agreements, would “undermine the intent of Congress and undermine the jobs and futures of our workers.” (See ARPN’s earlier post on the issue here) 

But that’s not all.  Now a news story from Asian media examines whether such a pact might actually provide U.S. taxpayer-funded subsidies that would benefit Chinese mining companies.  For a U.S. law meant to encourage U.S. resource development and reduce foreign resource dependence not least on China, it’s an unintended consequence, to say the least.

As Nikkei Asia picks up the story, the senators’ opposition is throwing “a wrench int the Biden Administration’s plans to host [Indonesian] President Joko Widodo at the White House this month, to coincide with the Indonesian leader’s attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic summit in San Francisco.”

Nikkei cites North American mining industry representative Todd Malan who points out that “[t]he idea behind the IRA was that free trade agreement countries have high standards and was a proxy for saying ‘let’s build up a supply chain outside of China and to do it with allies that have free-trade agreements,” adding that “The point of the letter is to say that giving a free trade agreement to Indonesia is just a backdoor for Chinese companies and that U.S. taxpayers should not be giving a subsidy to Chinese miners in Indonesia.” 

Indeed, Chinese companies are heavily invested in the country. Benefiting from long-standing relationships with Indonesia, they have “poured upwards of $14 billion into two ore-rich islands to lock in supplies for battery production,” according to Bloomberg reports.

Malan is chief external affairs officer at Talon Metals, a mining company focused on advancing U.S. domestic nickel projects which have been awarded federal funding in recent months – along with several other domestic projects for other battery and defense criticals. (See ARPN’s  recent coverage here and here)

All of which underscores, as ARPN has previously pointed out, that “Critical Mineral resource development can begin at home, where political risk is low and environmental, labor and mine safety standards are high” – principles that should guide stakeholders when it comes to sourcing nickel and other Criticals, particularly as geopolitical tensions surge across the globe. 

The post Would Incentivizing U.S. Nickel Imports From Indonesia be a Backdoor for U.S. Tax Subsidies for Chinese Nickel Companies? appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

In a letter to Biden administration officials, the senators, led by U.S. Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Tina Smith (D-MN), express their concerns regarding media reports of a potential “limited free trade” agreement between the United States and Indonesia on critical minerals.

The Biden administration is looking to expand the number of countries to qualify for the tax credits afforded under the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), but senators argue the Administration is forging ahead with negotiations with Indonesia — a country that is not only known for questionable human rights, labor and environmental standards, but has also restricted trade in critical minerals and floated the idea cartelization ideas for nickel producing countries – without having developed a comprehensive accounting of domestic sourcing options, and the opportunities from countries with which the U.S. already has trade agreements.

“(…) pursuing additional critical mineral ‘free trade agreements’ without the involvement of Congress, before the development of domestic mineral resources, and without achieving meaningful and enforceable standards for labor and environmental protections would undermine the intent of Congress and undermine the jobs and futures of our workers,” the senators write.

A key battery critical, nickel is also an essential building block for the production of high-temperature aerospace alloys and stainless steel.  A “relatively benign supply profile” kept nickel off the U.S. Government’s first List of Critical Minerals in 2018. However, the metal’s increased usage in EV batteries, and the USGS’s expanded criticality criteria to include materials with only a single domestic producer along their raw materials supply chains – identified as having a single point of failure – led to nickel’s incorporation into the 2021 update to the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List.   In 2022, nickel was also named in the Defense Production Act Presidential Determination as one of five battery materials “essential to the national defense.” 

As the largest nickel producer with the largest known reserves of the material, Indonesia is considered the “nickel capital of the world.”  Followers of ARPN may recall last year’s reports of the country’s government studying the “possibility to form a (…) governance structure [similar to OPEC]” for nickel-producing countries.

And while the United States’ only primary nickel mine in operation, the Eagle Mine in Michigan, is nearing the end of its life cycle, other domestic opportunities are readily available, as acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Defense, which recently awarded funding  under Defense Production Act Title III authority) to Talon Nickel (USA), LLC to increase the domestic production of nickel.

The $20.6 million agreement uses funds appropriated by the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, to advance nickel exploration and mineral resource definition of the Tamarack Intrusive Complex (TIC).   The project is not only considered promising due to its available nickel resources, but also in light of its harnessing of new technologies to minimize its carbon footprint, which is why the U.S. Department of Energy previously issued a $2.2. million award to fund to a joint venture between Talon Metals Corp. and Rio Tinto at the Tamarack Nickel Project site to achieve carbon capture by a process that mineralizes the carbon in rock – a process far more stable than methods that inject carbon, where it remains vulnerable to seepage and fracturing due to earthquakes.

These federal grants follow Talon’s $114 million 2022 grant from the Department of Energy to build a processing plant in North Dakota – making the company one of the first recipients of Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act renewable energy funds.

All of which is proof that Critical Mineral resource development can begin at home, where political risk is low and environmental, labor and mine safety standards are high.  As the senators argue:

“(…) given the extraordinary taxpayer resources at play, we strongly believe that eligibility for the critical minerals credit must prioritize domestic producers and existing free trade agreement partners. If expansion is deemed necessary, it should be directed toward countries with strong labor, human rights and environmental standards.”

The post U.S. Senators to Administration: Prioritize Domestic Producers and Existing Free Trade Agreement Partners in Push to Bolster Supply Chains for Nickel and Other Critical Minerals appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

With the continent’s “geopolitical stock” on the rise, observers see African countries becoming more assertive in negotiating mineral deals with external actors, and resorting to resource nationalism “in some economies where we see an insistence on local processing, more stringent local content requirements and generally attempts to integrate these critical mineral supply chains with a broad drive for industrialization.”

Most recently, Kenya is making headlines with legislation pending that would establish a Mining Regulatory Authority to replace the current Mining Rights Board, which would, unlike its predecessor which was an advisory body, “control the exploration, extraction, production, processing, refining, transportation, storage exportation, importation and sale of minerals.”

Kenya is home to significant deposits of copper, graphite, manganese, nickel and iron ore, demand scenarios for which are surging.

With the coronavirus pandemic spotlighting supply chain security issues for critical minerals and against the backdrop of ever-increasing demand, export controls have gained in popularity as a policy tool.

Earlier this summer, reports of India considering an export ban on four key metals – lithium, beryllium, niobium, and tantalum — made headlines on the heels of China announcing 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 announcements 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.

Some argue that rather than seeing emerging resource nationalism as a cause for concern, we should embrace it and understand it as an opportunity as “raw material export bans would encourage the construction of processing facilities in producer countries, allow them to claim a larger share of the value chain, (…) encourage the global dispersion of processing capacity that is today dangerously concentrated in China,” and the U.S. could harness this development via an expansion of its friend-shoring network.

Opportunity or threat – resource nationalism is increasingly becoming a policy tool the U.S. and our allies will have to factor into our efforts to decouple from adversary nations, i.e. China. In the process, as ARPN previously outlined, 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.

The post Resource Nationalism Growing Factor as Nations Continue Quest to Reduce Reliance on China for Critical Minerals appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

ARPN outlined several of these DoD-funded projects to strengthen critical mineral supply chains in an earlier post. This past week, DoD added two more projects to the list.

On September 12, 2023, DoD announced that the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy, through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) office, has entered an agreement with Albemarle Corporation to support the expansion of domestic mining and production of lithium.

Per DoD’s announcement, “[t]he $90 million agreement, entered into under Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III authorities and utilizing funds appropriated by the Inflation Reduction Act, will help support Albemarle’s planned re-opening of their Kings Mountain, N.C. lithium mine to increase domestic production of lithium for the nation’s battery supply chain. Albemarle estimates that Kings Mountain will be operational between 2025 and 2030.”

Sometimes hailed the “fuel of the green revolution,” lithium has been the posterchild of the “battery criticals.”  Start with the fact that the leading battery technology underpinning the shift towards net zero carbon emissions is called “lithium-ion.” With its high electrochemical potential and light weight, the commercialization of the lithium-ion battery has transformed and accelerated the renewables shift.  Lithium is a key component of the battery cathode, and the EV market and demand for renewable energy storage are key drivers for soaring lithium demand.

Meanwhile, as global lithium production has quadrupled since 2010, the U.S. share of production has dropped significantly. Once the largest producer of lithium in the 1990s, the United States’ share of production has dropped to 1 percent of the global total, as Australia, Chile and China dominate the field.

A second award announcement made on the same day aims at strengthening the nickel supply chain, and was also made through the Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) office of the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Resilience:

The $20.6 million agreement with Talon Nickel (USA), LLC – also entered into under DPA Title III authorities — uses funds appropriated by the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act to advance nickel exploration and mineral resource definition of the Tamarack Intrusive Complex in northeast Minnesota.

The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Resilience, through its Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) office, entered an agreement with Talon Nickel (USA), LLC (Talon) to increase the domestic production of nickel.

The $20.6 million agreement, entered into under Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III authorities and using funds appropriated by the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, to advance nickel exploration and mineral resource definition of the Tamarack Intrusive Complex (TIC). Here, the company seeks to leverage its Advanced Exploration System (AES) — a proprietary suite of geophysical mapping tools that has already completed a successful pilot program and allows the company to rapidly identify and demonstrate economically recoverable nickel materials.

A key battery critical, nickel is also an essential building block for the production of high-temperature aerospace alloys and stainless steel.  A “relatively benign supply profile” kept nickel off the U.S. Government’s first List of Critical Minerals in 2018. However, the metal’s increased usage in EV batteries, and the USGS’s expanded criticality criteria to include materials with only a single domestic producer along their raw materials supply chains – identified as having a single point of failure – led to nickel’s incorporation into the 2021 update to the U.S. Government Critical Minerals List.    The United States’ only primary nickel mine in operation, the Eagle Mine in Michigan, is nearing the end of its life cycle.

While, as ARPN previously outlined,  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.

The post DoD Once More Invokes Defense Production Act Title III Authority for Projects to Strengthen Domestic Critical Mineral Supply Chains for Lithium, Nickel appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.