British Columbia 

In April 2008, Boss Power had applied to drill at its Blizzard uranium project southeast of Kelowna, just days before the province banned uranium and thorium exploration. Three years later, the provincial government and Boss agreed to a C$30 million settlement for the company to surrender its claims to Blizzard. The project hosts 2.2 million tonnes grading 0.214% uranium oxide (U₃O₈), for 10.4 million contained lbs. U₃O₈, according to an historical resource from 1979.

Quebec

Quebec imposed an unofficial moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in 2013. While uranium activity isn’t officially banned, it’s subject to numerous strict regulations in Quebec. No uranium mines have been developed in the province, and there are currently no uranium development projects there. However, there are at least 10 active exploration projects, three of which have published resources.

Nova Scotia

During a flurry of uranium exploration in Nova Scotia from around 1976 to 1981, companies spent millions of dollars searching for the nuclear metal, before the province banned it in 1981. Millet Brook is one significant uranium deposit discovered in Nova Scotia, and hosts about 450,000 kg of U₃O₈ grading 0.15% to 0.20% U₃O₈, a historical resource from 1982 shows. Much uranium remains under the surface across the province, according to geology mapping by the Mining Association of Nova Scotia.

Sources: The Northern Miner, British Columbia government, Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests, DigiGeoData, Mining Association of Nova Scotia, Atlantic Geology.

A vocal Trump supporter who attended the president’s inauguration party in Mar-a-Lago in January, Rinehart told Reuters that rather than “whine and whinge” about Trump and his policies, Australia could benefit from a similar approach.

“Australia must reduce its costs, cut government wastage and the expense of government tape, regulations, compliance, licences…,” Rinehart said in exclusive comments sent to Reuters.

Rinehart is Australia’s richest person with a net worth Forbes puts at $30 billion. Her flagship mining company, Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd, is among the biggest donors to opposition leader Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party, more than tripling donations in the 2024 financial year to A$500,000 ($320,000), according to Australian Electoral Commission data.

Voter concerns over the global fallout from Trump’s stop-start tariffs and volatile diplomacy appear to have hurt the prospects of Dutton’s conservative coalition ahead of the May 3 vote, with polls in the final stretch of the campaign showing the ruling centre-left Labor Party of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese easing ahead.

The trend is similar to that seen in Canada this week where Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals staged a major political comeback, fuelled by a backlash against Trump.

Rinehart said the outcome of Trump’s tariffs policies may take a few months to play out, noting “more than 75 countries had asked to meet with US Administration officials to negotiate on tariffs.”

Dutton’s office and the Labor party did not respond to requests for comment.

Rinehart’s support of Dutton and the populist conservative movement in Australia has echoes of the support for Trump by billionaire Elon Musk, who is now a key adviser to the president.

Rinehart has not publicly sought any Australian government role, but has called for the establishment of a version of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). She also wants Australia to withdraw from the Paris Agreement to combat climate change, as Trump did during his first term.

When Trump was inaugurated in January, Dutton was ahead in opinion polls, as Australians expressed anger over the cost of living and housing affordability.

In the week after Trump and Musk arrived in the White House, Dutton criticized public servants hired as “culture, diversity and inclusion advisers.” He later promised to set up a Ministry of Government Efficiency, but has since played down comparisons with Trump and his policies.

Rinehart suggested without providing detail, that in Australia “the Left” was resisting public sector cuts because they benefited from bureaucratic largesse.

“Perhaps not surprising the Left are also against Elon Musk and DOGE, you might think, wouldn’t they like to see this taxpayer drain minimalized, but no, certainly not those with snouts in the trough. And not those who may be concerned they will have to pay money back where wrongly taken, or even go to jail.”

Dutton has proposed cutting around 41,000 non-frontline government jobs in Canberra, a figure Labor said was impossible given the number of jobs in the capital fitting the criteria.

Fossil fuels, defence boost

Rinehart has been a vocal supporter of fossil fuels to boost energy security and lower prices. She was pictured during the Trump campaign smiling and wearing a sign that read “Drill Baby Drill.”

Dutton has been a major backer of natural gas, pledging to incentivize more production, and wants to introduce nuclear power, in contrast to Labor which is relying on renewables and batteries to lower power prices and meet carbon commitments.

“Probably the biggest single government tape that needs to be on pause, so our economy has the chance to recover, is the Paris Accord,” Rinehart said.

“Could it be that the American public are ahead of us, they understand that cutting the mining and export of fossil fuels brings less revenue, less jobs and opportunities,” she added.

Last month, in response to questions that Liberal Party policies had not gone far enough for Rinehart on gas, while at the same time had not ditched a commitment to net zero emissions, Dutton said: “We’ll have points of difference with many people, but that doesn’t mean that it impacts your friendship or your relationship with different business people.”

Rinehart last week called for Australia, a key US security ally, to spend 5% of its gross domestic product on national security, in line with the Trump administration’s policies.

Labor has pledged to boost defence spending by A$50 billion over the next decade, but would have to more than double its current spending to meet a 5% goal.

Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting in February disclosed for the first time a roughly $1.3 billion US investment portfolio, with many of the largest holdings in companies involved in energy, mining and rare earths – crucial for defence and aerospace technologies.

A Reuters analysis of the 10 top holdings show they are up 2.3% in the first four months of the year, in contrast to a 5.5% fall in the S&P 500, thanks largely to a 57% surge in shares of rare earths producer MP Materials.

“Americans may be ahead of us recognizing they want strong leadership providing defence of their country and people, which President Trump is also busy doing,” Rinehart said.

“Although, they may not want their taxpayers dollars and defence personnel’s lives risked to help allies who don’t understand them, whine and whinge and worse, are incredibly rude to them, and who do bugger all to provide their own defence.”

($1 = 1.5603 Australian dollars)

(By Melanie Burton; Editing by Praveen Menon and Lincoln Feast)

The following is an overview of the critical minerals, including rare earths, and other natural resources in Ukraine:

What are rare earths and what are they used for?

Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion for electric vehicles, cell phones, missile systems, and other electronics. There are no viable substitutes.

The US Geological Survey considers 50 minerals to be critical, including rare earths, nickel and lithium.

Critical minerals are essential for industries such as defence, high-tech appliances, aerospace and green energy.

What mineral resources does Ukraine have?

Ukraine has deposits of 22 of the 34 minerals identified by the European Union as critical, according to Ukrainian data. They include industrial and construction materials, ferro alloy, precious and non-ferrous metals, and some rare earth elements.

According to Ukraine’s Institute of Geology, the country possesses rare earths such as lanthanum and cerium, used in TVs and lighting; neodymium, used in wind turbines and EV batteries; and erbium and yttrium, whose applications range from nuclear power to lasers. EU-funded research also indicates that Ukraine has scandium reserves. Detailed data is classified.

The World Economic Forum has said Ukraine is also a key potential supplier of lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite and nickel.

The State Geological Service said Ukraine has one of Europe’s largest confirmed reserves, estimated at 500,000 metric tons, of lithium – vital for batteries, ceramics, and glass.

The country has titanium reserves, mostly located in its northwestern and central regions, while lithium is found in the centre, east and southeast.

Ukraine’s reserves of graphite, a key component in electric vehicle batteries and nuclear reactors, represent 20% of global resources. The deposits are in the centre and west.

Ukraine also has significant coal reserves, though most are now under the control of Russia in occupied territory.

Mining analysts and economists say Ukraine currently has no commercially operational rare earth mines.

China is the world’s largest producer of rare earths and many other critical minerals.

What do we know about the deal?

The two countries signed the accord in Washington after months of sometimes fraught negotiations, with uncertainty persisting until the last moment with word of an eleventh-hour snag.

The accord establishes a joint investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as Trump tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia’s three-year-old war in Ukraine.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko were shown signing the agreement in a photo posted on X by the Treasury, which said the deal “clearly signals the Trump Administration’s commitment to a free, sovereign, prosperous Ukraine.”

Svyrydenko wrote on X that the accord provides for Washington to contribute to the fund. She also said the accord provides for new assistance, for example air defense systems for Ukraine. The US did not directly address that suggestion.

Svyrydenko said the accord allowed Ukraine to “determine what and where to extract” and that its subsoil remains owned by Ukraine.

Svyrydenko said Ukraine has no debt obligations to the United States under the agreement, a key point in the lengthy negotiations between the two countries. It also complied with Ukraine’s constitution and Ukraine’s campaign to join the European Union, she said.

The draft did not provide any concrete US security guarantees for Ukraine, one of its initial goals.

Which Ukrainian resources are under Kyiv’s control?

The war has caused widespread damage across Ukraine, and Russia now controls around a fifth of its territory.

The bulk of Ukraine’s coal deposits, which powered its steel industry before the war, are concentrated in the east and have been lost.

About 40% of Ukraine’s metal resources are now under Russian occupation, according to estimates by Ukrainian think-tanks We Build Ukraine and the National Institute of Strategic Studies, citing data up to the first half of 2024. They provided no detailed breakdown.

Since then, Russian troops have continued to advance steadily in the eastern Donetsk region. In January, Ukraine closed its only coking coal mine outside the city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow’s forces are trying to capture.

Russia has occupied at least two Ukrainian lithium deposits during the war – one in Donetsk and another in the Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast. Kyiv still controls lithium deposits in the central Kyrovohrad region.

What opportunities does Ukraine offer?

Oleksiy Sobolev, first deputy economy minister, said in January that the government was working on deals with Western allies including the United States, Britain, France and Italy on projects related to exploiting critical materials. The government estimates the sector’s total investment potential at about $12-15 billion by 2033.

The State Geological Service said the government was preparing about 100 sites to be jointly licensed and developed but provided no further details.

Although Ukraine has a highly qualified and relatively inexpensive labour force and developed infrastructure, investors highlight a number of barriers to investment. These include inefficient and complex regulatory processes as well as difficulty accessing geological data and obtaining land plots.

Such projects would take years to develop and require considerable up-front investment, they said.

(By Olena Harmash; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Neil Fullick)

The Kremlin was silent on Wednesday’s agreement, but former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said it meant Trump had “broken the Kyiv regime” because Ukraine would have to pay for US military aid with mineral resources.

The accord, which was signed in Washington and heavily promoted by Trump, establishes a joint investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as the US president tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia’s three-year-old war in Ukraine.

The agreement grants the US preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals projects. It is central to Ukraine’s efforts to mend ties with the White House, which frayed after Trump took office in January.

The deal will show the “Russian leadership that there is no daylight between the Ukrainian people and the American people, between our goals,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business Network in an interview.

“And again, I think this is a strong signal to the Russian leadership, and it gives President Trump the ability to now negotiate with Russia on even a stronger basis,” he said.

His remarks appeared to send a signal to Russia that Washington remains aligned with Kyiv despite question marks over its commitment to its ally since Trump’s return to power upended US diplomacy.

The Ukrainian parliament must still approve the pact.

Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who signed the accord, told reporters in an online briefing that would happen in the next few weeks.

“We want to ratify it as soon as possible. So we plan to do it within the coming weeks,” Svyrydenko said, adding that some technical details had to be completed before a joint US-Ukraine investment fund could become operational.

“We really need to be more sustainable and more self-sufficient, and this is a real tool that can help us achieve this goal,” she said.

Ukraine’s Economy Ministry said the two sides did not expect the agreement to begin generating revenue this year.

Vatican talks were key

Senior Trump administration officials said three agreements had been signed – a framework deal and two technical accords – and that they expected Ukraine’s parliament to approve them within a week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he hoped there would be no delays in securing parliament’s approval, although some lawmakers said they expected it to take longer than a week.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met parliamentary factions at a closed meeting on Thursday. Some members complained they had not seen the text of the agreement or been properly consulted.

“The agreement has changed significantly in the preparation process,” Zelenskiy said in a video posted on Telegram, hailing what he called a “truly equal agreement” that created opportunities for investment in Ukraine and the modernization of industry and legal practices in his country.

He and Bessent both underlined that talks between Zelenskiy and Trump in Rome during Pope Francis’ funeral on April 26 played an important role in securing a deal.

“In fact, now we have the first result of the Vatican meeting, which makes it truly historic,” Zelenskiy said.

Kyiv has been highly dependent on US military supplies since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and says Moscow has intensified attacks on Ukraine since the US stepped up efforts to secure a peace settlement.

Washington has signalled its frustration with the failure of Moscow and Kyiv to agree on terms, and Trump has shown signs of disappointment with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not moving faster towards peace.

Medvedev, who is now a senior security official in Russia, suggested Ukraine had been forced into the agreement.

“Trump has broken the Kyiv regime to the point where they will have to pay for US aid with mineral resources,” he wrote on Telegram. “Now they (Ukrainians) will have to pay for military supplies with the national wealth of a disappearing country.”

Ukraine’s international debt rallied after the signing of the deal, which financial analysts said had come with better terms for Ukraine than they had originally thought likely.

Ukraine is rich in natural resources including rare earth metals used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles and military applications, among others. Global rare earth mining is dominated by China, which is locked in a trade war with the US after Trump’s sharp tariff increases.

Ukraine also has reserves of iron, uranium and natural gas.

(By Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, David Lawder, Anastasiia Malenko, Tom Balmforth, Karin Strohecker, Yuliia Dysa and Timothy Heritage; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

According to Chinese state media, a group of scientists recently managed to refuel a working thorium molten salt reactor without causing a shutdown — a feat never achieved before. The success was announced by the project’s chief scientist Xu Hongjie during a closed-door meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences on April 8, Chinese news outlet Guangming Daily reported last week.

Such a breakthrough could be transformative to the global energy landscape, as thorium has long been hailed as a far safer and cheaper alternative to uranium in nuclear reactors. While also a radioactive element, thorium produces less waste, and the silver-colored metal, mostly found in monazite, is much more common in the Earth’s crust.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), thorium is three times more abundant in nature than uranium, but historically has found little use in power generation due to the significant economic and technical hurdles.

China takes lead

The latest announcement in China represents a key step in removing some of the hurdles. In the April 8 meeting, Xu said China “now leads the global frontier” in nuclear energy, as cited by Guangming Daily.

The reactor used by Xu’s team is a prototype located in the Gobi Desert, known for its rich endowment of minerals such as uranium and rare earths. The experimental unit is able to generate 2 megawatts of thermal power, using molten salt to carry the fuel and manage heat, with thorium serving as its fuel source.

Compared to uranium, thorium can generate a significantly higher amount of energy via nuclear fission. A Stanford University research estimates that thorium’s power generation could be 35 times higher. Thorium molten-salt reactors (TMSRs) are also compact, do not require water cooling, cannot experience a meltdown and produce very little long-lived radioactive waste, according to the IAEA.

When announcing the breakthrough, Xu acknowledged that its project was based on previous research by US researchers who pioneered molten salt reactor technology in the 1950s, but abandoned shortly after to pursue uranium-fueled ones.

Xu — who was tasked with the thorium reactor project in 2009 — told Chinese media that his team spent years dissecting declassified American documents, replicating experiments and innovating beyond them.

Vast thorium supply

The technology breakthrough follows a report earlier this year that China’s thorium reserves, already known as the world’s largest, may actually be bigger than previously estimated, according to a national survey cited by the South China Morning Post in February.

In the report, scientists claim that the Bayan Obo mining complex in Inner Mongolia, which is the world’ s largest rare earth producer and has a huge amount of thorium in tailings, could yield 1 million tonnes of thorium – enough to fuel China for 60,000 years.

The Chinese government has long aimed to harness the power-generation potential of thorium, which it sees as part of the nation’s strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. The country, as the world’s-second-largest carbon emitter, has reportedly been working on thorium-fueled reactors since the 1970s.

Last year, China approved the construction of the world’s first thorium molten-salt reactors in the Gobi Desert. These are larger than the one used in Xu’s project, and are expected to generate 10 megawatts of electricity starting in 2029.

The company’s over the counter units trading on US markets (OTCPK:GLNCY) was down by 8.6% in mid-afternoon dealings, recovering from a double digit fall at the open.

Glencore stock is down more than 26% so far this year, affording the company a market capitalization of just under $40 billion. Its market value peaked at the end of Q1 2022 at more than $90 billion.

The Swiss-headquartered miner and commodities trader reported a 30% drop in first-quarter copper production to 167,900 tonnes, but maintained its full-year forecast for 2025 at 850,000-910,000 tonnes, expecting higher output in coming months.

The top of that range would still be down from the company’s 2024 annual production of 952,000 tonnes. The Q1 production miss was primarily due to lower ore mining rates, head grades and overall recoveries at Collahuasi (29,400 tonnes), Antapaccay (20,800 tonnes) and KCC (16,700 tonnes) Glencore said.

First-quarter production of cobalt rose 44% on higher grades and volumes at its Mutanda mine, while nickel production fell 21%, it said. The company kept 2025 production guidance unchanged for both.

Glencore forecasts full-year trading and marketing earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) in the middle of its long-term guidance of $2.2 billion to $3.2 billion this year, compared to $3.2 billion in 2024.

“Since quarter-end, financial markets, including commodities, have been highly volatile and unpredictable, responding rapidly to US tariff newsflow and uncertainty.

“In such an unpredictable environment, risk management has been a primary focus, noting the many complex supply chains we are exposed to, including the US, China, Europe and Canada. Despite the ‘noise’, primary commodity trade routes to date have not been meaningfully disrupted.

“However, owing to the various proposed and currently being implemented tariffs across commodity supply chains, it is likely that some physical trade flow re-orientation and dislocation will manifest over the coming months, which may present opportunities for our marketing business,” Glencore said in a statement.

The trading division, whose profit hit a record $6.4 billion in 2022, includes coal, oil, liquefied natural gas and related products, as well as metals.

“Disappointing that in these volatile times with significant regional arbitrage in copper that marketing guidance was not at the top end of the range,” RBC Capital Markets analysts told Reuters.

Glencore’s first-quarter thermal coal production fell 7% to 23.4 million tonnes from 25.2 million tonnes a year before on lower output from its Australian mines.

The company is one of the largest producers and exporters of thermal coal, mining 99.6 million tonnes in 2024.

Glencore said in March it would begin reducing production at its Colombia mine Cerrejon by between 5 million and 10 million tonnes annually.

(With files from Reuters)

A new estimate for District Metals’ (TSXV: DMX) Viken project in central Sweden raises uranium resources so much it’s now the world’s second largest deposit of the nuclear metal, the company said Tuesday. Shares shot up.

The report gives Viken 456 million indicated tonnes grading 175 parts per million (ppm) uranium oxide (U₃O₈) for 176 million contained lb. U₃O₈, an almost ninefold rise over the previous resource from 2010. Inferred resources grew 44% to 4.33 billion tonnes grading 161 ppm U₃O₈ for 1.53 billion contained pounds.

Viken was already one of the world’s largest uranium deposits, and the new report makes it the second largest, District CEO Garrett Ainsworth said in a release.

“The stunning growth of the current Viken [estimate] from the 2006 to 2012 drill data is a testament to the continuity in grade and thickness of the mineralized Alum Shale formation found across the Viken deposit,” he said. There’s “strong” potential to increase the inferred resource even more, he said.

District shares gained 23% to C$0.35 apiece in afternoon trading Tuesday in Toronto, for a market capitalization of C$45.9 million.

Swedish uranium momentum

The new resource for Viken, located 570 km north of Stockholm, adds to tailwinds for uranium in Sweden as the country moves towards lifting its 2018 ban on exploration and mining of the nuclear metal. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government has sought to overturn the ban since 2023, and the legislative changes lifting it are expected to take effect next January.

Sweden’s uranium output is minor by global standards, with its resources accounting for 27% of the European total, according to the country’s geological survey. But demand for the metal is high around the world as countries seek zero-emissions energy to power electricity-hungry AI servers.

Viken’s global ranking

While Viken hosts the largest uranium resource by contained metal in Europe, how it ranks globally depends on how uranium projects are weighed.

District assumed a scenario in which Viken is compared to other deposits where uranium is the primary or secondary metal, Ainsworth said in an email to The Northern Miner, citing a table by S&P Global Intelligence on the world’s largest uranium deposits.

In that scenario, Viken sits under BHP’s (NYSE, ASX, LSE: BLT) polymetallic Olympic Dam project in South Australia.

Critical mineral bounty

Viken also hosts significant amounts of other critical minerals such as vanadium, zinc and nickel.

The new resource raises by more than 16 times the indicated vanadium tonnage, which now grades at 2,836 ppm vanadium oxide (V₂O₅) for 2.85 billion contained pounds. The inferred vanadium resource grows by 45% to 24.29 billion lb. grading 2,543 ppm V₂O_5.

The indicated zinc resource totals 413 contained lb. grading 411 ppm zinc, and inferred resources add 3.9 billion contained lb. at 417 ppm zinc.

Nickel comes to 332 million contained lb. at 330 ppm in the indicated category, and 3 billion contained lb. in the inferred category grades at 321 ppm nickel.

Sweden’s proposal to lift the uranium mining ban will influence District’s decision to pursue a preliminary economic assessment for Viken in the fourth quarter, Ainsworth said.

The new resource is based on 122 holes and includes data from holes drilled between 2006 and 2012 by previous operators, District said.

In its latest report, Sprott notes that uranium prices have stabilized near $65/lb following a correction driven not by weakening fundamentals, but by a pause in utility contracting. Buyers have been waiting for clarity on US tariffs and potential trade restrictions on Russian enriched uranium.

Some of that uncertainty began to clear in early April, helping steady the spot market. Sprott maintains that uranium’s decline reflects macro sentiment and technical selling—not a reversal in the commodity’s structural outlook.

“Despite market pressures, uranium’s term price remains stable at $80/lb and global supply is constrained below demand levels,” the firm said.

Resilience amid volatility

While broader equity and commodity markets have seen volatility in recent months, uranium has shown relative stability.

In early April, it remained uncorrelated with other risk assets—holding firm even as equities sold off, bond markets wobbled, and volatility spiked.

Uranium and uranium equities have outperformed other commodities and global equities over the past five years, driven by a deepening supply deficit and growing global policy support. That trend, Sprott argues, is far from over.

Supply lags demand

Supply constraints remain a central part of the bullish case. Few new uranium projects are advancing, and some juniors—like NexGen, Deep Yellow, and Paladin—have delayed development. Kazatomprom has also guided production toward the lower end of its outlook amid cost and input challenges.

In Australia, heavily shorted producers such as Paladin and Boss Energy have come under pressure, but Sprott believes short positioning in uranium equities is out of sync with underlying market dynamics. “This wave of equity weakness is a sentiment story, not a structural one,” the report reads.

On the demand side, China continues to expand its nuclear fleet, and the US—backed by bipartisan support—has reaffirmed its commitment to nuclear power as a strategic asset. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta are also pushing for an ambitious tripling of global nuclear power capacity by 2050 to meet growing baseload energy needs.

Sprott expects the next leg of the uranium bull cycle to begin as utilities return to the market and long-term contracting resumes. With global uranium production still well below reactor requirements and long timelines for new supply to come online, the firm sees a structurally tight market for years to come.

PM and Liberal Party head Mark Carney, who’s leading in the polls, has pledged to approve resource projects within two years and broaden exploration tax credits as part of a plan to make Canada both an “energy superpower” and “the global supplier of choice for critical minerals.”

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, has vowed to open a resource-focused project office with an even shorter time limit – one year – to get “shovels in the ground” as fast as possible.  He also says he’ll build long-discussed infrastructure for Ontario’s Ring of Fire region, a set of three new roads and power lines linking future mines with the southern road network. Even so, his platform is thin on details about mining.

“Both parties would unlock stronger growth via major infrastructure and resource development, but each differs in approach,” Scotiabank Economics Vice President Rebekah Young said in a report issued Friday. “A complicated jurisdictional landscape, compounded now by global uncertainties, means either party would have its work cut out to spur greater investment.”

Critical minerals and industrial metals have emerged as essential economic building blocks in recent years as the world gears up for the coming energy transition. In the United States, President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order to increase American critical mineral production to dent China’s dominance after launching a Section 232 probe on all critical mineral imports – a process that typically results in tariffs.

‘Energy superpower’ goal

“Making Canada an energy superpower starts with critical metals and minerals, vital components to build everything from solar panels to electric vehicles,” Carney said last week during a campaign stop in Vancouver. “The market for these minerals is currently dominated by China and Russia. That must change.”

In his first election campaign, Carney has pledged to “kick-start” the “clean energy supply chain” by investing in critical minerals, spurring private investment and supporting early-stage mining companies.

If elected, Carney is proposing to adopt “Buy Canada” standards for products such as steel and aluminum while putting an increased focus on feedstock for battery supply chain buildouts.

First and Last Mile

A key measure included in the 67-page Liberal platform is the creation of the First and Last Mile Fund, an investment vehicle that Carney says will connect critical mineral projects to supply chains by supporting on-site development, processing and refining capacity.

Carney also wants to broaden the Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit by including critical minerals necessary for defence, semiconductors, energy and clean technologies to the list of qualifying minerals.

A Liberal government would also expand eligible activities under Canadian exploration expenses to include the costs of engineering, economic and feasibility studies for critical minerals projects.

“All of these measures taken together will make Canada the global supplier of choice for critical metals and minerals,” Carney said.

Repealing obstructive laws

Poilievre, Carney’s main rival for the top job, has vowed to repeal various policies passed under former Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau – including the Impact Assessment Act known as Bill C-69.

He calls Bill C-69 the “No More Development” law, saying it “makes it impossible to build the mines, pipelines and other major energy infrastructure Canada needs.” Removing it would trigger a boom in the country’s resource sector, he says.

“We will get big projects built again by repealing the Liberal anti-development laws and regulations that have cost us half a trillion dollars in lost investment over the last decade,” Poilievre said in a campaign document posted on his party’s website. “We’ll also work with Indigenous partners to process and sell our clean natural resources to get foreign countries off burning higher-emission fuels and fight climate change.”

Although the 30-page Conservative platform has a section on Canadian energy and resources, “mining” and “minerals” don’t appear at all in the document. The word “mines” is mentioned once.

If he becomes PM, Poilievre has vowed to accelerate priority resource projects and usher in “One and Done” approvals. He would create a single Rapid Resource Project Office to streamline all regulatory approvals into one application and environmental review, in cooperation with the provinces, with a target of six-month decisions and a one-year maximum timeline.

Fast-tracking projects

A key pledge for miners involves building the infrastructure project to Ontario’s Ring of Fire region, which is known for its vast potential but slow progress towards getting any mines built. A Conservative government would approve federal permits to harvest chromite, cobalt, nickel, copper and platinum in the area, Poilievre says.

In the Conservative leader’s view, these measures would give the Canadian economy a boost of several billion dollars, “allowing us to become less dependent on the Americans, while our allies overseas would no longer have to rely on hostile regimes for these metals, turning dollars for dictators into paycheques for our people.”

The US president has put pressure on Kyiv by threatening to stop the flow of military supplies to help it fight Russia’s invasion unless the US gets some payback for the billions of dollars the aid is costing.

But the deal is sensitive for Ukraine, which has a proud history of mining coal and iron ore and hopes to exploit seams of increasingly sought-after rare earths. Mineral revenues are a crucial pillar of the state budget.

In the city of Kryvyi Rih, on whose outskirts open-cast iron ore mines have gouged huge craters in the landscape, 71-year-old pensioner Oleksandr had little time for Trump: “You can’t trust that ginger guy, he’s not that kind of person.”

“From what I can see, they only want to take, not to give,” he said as he shopped near the UGOK iron ore mining and processing plant.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, himself from Kryvyi Rih, said on Monday the negotiations on creating a mineral revenue fund from which the US would draw had made progress since a memorandum of intent signed on April 18:

“The document has become much stronger – more equitable – and could be beneficial to both our peoples, for Ukraine and for America.”

‘Minerals belong to the people’

Zelenskiy knows he must win Trump over after a difficult relationship so far, but that there will be uproar at home if he makes a bad deal.

About 60 km (40 miles) north of Kryvyi Rih is the town of Zhovti Vody – or “yellow waters” – where uranium and iron ore were mined for decades.

“I hope that the people who are involved in this think about Ukraine and its people, because our mineral riches belong to the people,” said 71-year-old resident Nina Fesenko.

Olga Marynska, 68, said she hoped the government would prevent Ukraine being exploited.

“We don’t have to give them everything,” she said. “I don’t think we have to do it in such a way that they take everything out of that fund.”

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Sunday that there was now agreement that the deal would not seek to pay for US aid provided to Kyiv in the past.

That may help to reassure Ukrainians who feel they have battled Russia since 2022 not only for themselves but also on behalf of the West: the US-led NATO defence alliance that they seek to join, and the European nations to which many Ukrainians feel much closer than to President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

“I do think that for us as Ukrainians, it feels a little bit like another country is using our vulnerability, which was not created by us,” said Ukrainian legislator Inna Sovsun.

She said it was “critically important when we are designing the future to keep in mind that people will live here in the future”.

(By Vladyslav Smilianets, Thomas Peter, Anastasiia Malenko and Christian Lowe; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

“We are encouraging our companies to acquire assets abroad, right from iron ore to coking coal to even limestone and dolomite,” Poundrik said at an industry event in Mumbai. “Raw material securitization is the most important aspect of steelmaking.”

India, the world’s second-largest producer of crude steel, aims to boost its overall steelmaking capacity to 300 million tons by 2030, up from about 200 million tons currently.

To support this expansion, coking coal imports are projected to rise to 160 million tons by 2030 from around 58 million tons now, Poundrik had projected on Friday.

Despite an uptick in steel output, India’s coking coal imports dipped 0.7% in the fiscal year ended in March due to lower shipments from Australia and the United States, said commodities consultancy BigMint.

India relies on imports to meet 85% of its coking coal needs, with Australia supplying more than half of those shipments.

In a bid to diversify supply, India has also been exploring partnerships with Mongolia. However, logistical challenges remain in sourcing material from the landlocked country, Poundrik noted.

India’s state-run miner NMDC is exploring coking coal assets in Indonesia and Australia, chairman Amitava Mukherjee said on Thursday.

(By Neha Arora and Sethuraman NR; Editing by William Mallard)

A unit of Vulcan International, which owns the Moatize mine, has told the government it intends to cut 105 workers, an official with the Ministry of Labor said. Vulcan directly employs 3,365 people at its operations in Tete province, according to the firm’s website.

Vulcan – headed by Indian businessman Naveen Jindal – has attributed the proposed reduction in workforce to a restructuring of the company and a fall in coal prices, Adelaide Jantar, a provincial inspector at the ministry, told Bloomberg. Other coal mining companies are also cutting hundreds of workers, she said.

Violent protests following contested elections in October “made things worse,” she said. “We have never had such a huge number of dismissals in recent times.”

Vulcan Mozambique did not respond to emails requesting comment. Jindal’s company acquired the Moatize asset from Brazil’s Vale SA for $270 million in late 2021.

Coal sales, which are Mozambique’s biggest export, were worth $2 billion last year, according to data from the country’s central bank. Futures for coal loaded at South Africa’s Richards Bay port are down about 17% since the start of the year.

(By Tavares Cebola and William Clowes)

Joint projects in the Arctic, as well as oil and gas and rare-earth minerals, are among the options being considered under a partnership the US would offer as part of a peace pact, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing matters that aren’t public.

Russia, encouraged by President Donald Trump’s talk of economic deals that could follow a peace agreement, is drawing up a list of projects and assets that officials hope might interest the US, according to people in Moscow involved in the effort. The ideas are collected by Kirill Dmitriev, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for economic relations, who’s become a key conduit to the White House.

The two sides aren’t discussing plans directly at the moment, the people said. Any effort to rekindle economic ties would face enormous hurdles, from the thousands of sanctions still in place on Russia from the US and its Group of Seven allies to the Kremlin’s longstanding reluctance to allow foreign investors control in strategic sectors like energy.

The focus on possible business deals, especially in the energy sector, highlights the Trump administration’s transactional approach to foreign policy. If the agreements are realized, they could also leave US companies with a major role in the flow of gas, oil and electricity from Russia and Ukraine, including to Europe.

The effort follows on the heels of Trump’s push for a comprehensive investment agreement with Ukraine that would give the US a major role in projects to exploit the country’s mineral deposits and rebuild its infrastructure.

The US is driving for a quicker peace accord and has threatened to walk away from negotiations if the parties won’t agree to halt the hostilities. The US will demand that Russia accept Ukraine’s right to develop its own adequately equipped army and defense industry as part of a peace agreement, people said earlier this week, while Ukraine may be expected to give up some territory.

US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow Friday for talks that the Kremlin described as constructive. Dmitriev participated in the meeting, according to state media.

“The way that Trump likes to frame politics is in reference points that he can understand like business, and for now the Russians are happy to go along with this,” said Emily Ferris, a senior research fellow in the International Security Studies department at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The US proposed lifting sanctions on Moscow as part of any peace deal, according to people familiar with the situation, though that would also require agreement with the European Union as many of the most stringent restrictions have been imposed by the bloc.

The US sees economic incentives as a key element in persuading Putin in the drive for peace, according to the people.

“We do not confirm or deny details of ongoing negotiations. When the President has something to announce, we will announce it,” White House spokesman James Hewitt said in response to a request for comment for this article.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied a report he and Witkoff had discussed lifting energy sanctions.

Trump posted on social media Apr. 20 that if Russia and Ukraine reach a deal, “BOTH WILL THEN START TO DO BIG BUSINESS WITH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”

Some Russian officials are hopeful they can establish an economic partnership with the US even if talks over ending the fighting in Ukraine collapse, one of the people close to the Kremlin said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to a request for comment. Dmitriev’s office declined for comment.

“Russia’s trade with China is currently about 70-fold larger than its trade with the US, so that naturally limits the available options,” said Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Still, the White House could adopt a more flexible approach to sanctions enforcement, potentially allowing US energy companies to secure meaningful stakes in Russian energy ventures, including in the Arctic, she said.

One US proposal would see American control of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is now under Russian occupation, with the electricity output sent to both countries, the people said. Ukraine indicated that such an option at Europe’s biggest nuclear plant would come with numerous issues.

“If the US enters a format of managing this station, they will only be able to do so with the help of our technical personnel. Immediately, questions arise about access to water, infrastructure and security,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this week. It would be more acceptable if Ukraine and the US controlled the plant, though that option isn’t on the table, according to him.

The US has also discussed ways that the participation of American investors, either in production or transportation assets, might help restore some of Russia’s energy exports to Europe. The continent was Moscow’s largest market before the Kremlin’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine but has since slashed its dependence on Russian supplies.

The US has indicated an interest in working with Russia on projects in the Arctic and cooperating with energy giant Gazprom PJSC, although those contacts were not on an official level, Bloomberg reported in March. It has also informally explored the possibility of working with Russia to resume natural gas deliveries to Europe that were halted by Ukraine this year, two people said. That’s especially complicated as many states diversified supplies away from Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and the EU is working on a roadmap to phase out Russian fossil fuels.

The idea of allowing US companies to get access to Russian energy or transport assets has been discussed internally in Moscow, said a top executive of one state entity working with Gazprom and Rosneft PJSC. Selling stakes in energy projects or companies to the Americans, ideally those close to Trump, could be strategically useful, as it may ease the sales and cross border payment processes, he said, adding that he’s expressing a personal view.

It’s unclear which American companies could be involved in investments in the Russian energy sector and past relationships have been bumpy. The US itself is also competing with Russia for the European LNG market.

The US wasn’t among Russia’s top 10 biggest foreign direct investors before the war in Ukraine. American business in Russia was driven by brands ranging from McDonald’s Corp and PepsiCo Inc to the Ford Motor Co, while its presence in the energy and commodities sectors was less visible.

There were also big losses after the invasion of Ukraine. Exxon Mobil Corp eventually lost the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project as Putin signed a decree to transfer operations to a Russian entity.

Putin has also offered Russia’s rare earth deposits, following Trump’s repeated public expressions of interest in the critical minerals.

The Tomtor deposit in Yakutia in Russia’s far east is one potential candidate for cooperation with the US, one of the people close to the Russian government said. The deposit, one of the word’s biggest, in particular in niobium, is owned by former managers of the ICT Group since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and development was paused as sanctions prevented access to needed technologies.

American involvement in the project may help to resolve the issue as some sanctions could be eased, according to a person familiar with the situation. The deposit’s current owners weren’t available to comment.

Putin in November ordered to ensure the development of Tomtor either by its owners or with help from other investors or the state.

To be sure, even if a peace accord is reached to end the war in Ukraine, there’ll be a lot of political and economic uncertainty over the outlook for long-term investments in Russia.

“Many American companies lost a lot in Russia since 2014,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “Any significant influx of investors from the US is a utopia.”

CHARTS: Rare earth export restrictions, price spikes and the risks of demand destruction

Speaking at the Future of Energy Security summit held in London this week, IEA executive director Fatih Birol highlighted the strong expansion of clean energy technologies in recent years — while remarkable — also creates a new problem: the urgent need for raw materials.

“To manufacture this new clean energy technologies, you need critical minerals,” Birol said during the two-day event co-hosted by the British government. “We look at where the critical minerals are produced, where they are refined and where they are manufactured, that is a huge concentration, and this is something that we think is risky.”

According to the IEA, the world’s supply of critical minerals — such as copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements — are currently dominated by China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia, Chile, Indonesia and, to a lesser extent, the US.

This concentration of raw materials, said Birol, represents a “new emerging energy security challenge”, and the reason why the Agency launched its critical minerals program.

“Currently, we are A) not able to keep up with the demand, and B) the ability of manufacturing these critical minerals is concentrated in one single country or two,” Birol said in a speech last year when announcing the program.

In response to this challenge, the IEA urged nations to focus on policies that promote the diversification of mineral sources and move away from “critical mineral monopolies.”

“Most of these critical minerals are currently controlled by just one or two countries and it is important to ensure diversity in clean energy,” Birol told reporters from Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu on Friday.

“This is not about whether a country is good or bad. If there is a technical problem or a geopolitical development in that country, entire energy supply chains could be jeopardized,” he said.

On the sidelines of the summit, Birol noted China’s dominance in the critical minerals sector and its contribution to low-cost clean energy technologies. The Asian nation is the main producer for 30 out of 50 minerals deemed critical by the US, and is the world’s top miner and processor of rare earths.

Both leading contenders for the prime minister’s job touted the merits of a “one project, one review” system during the federal election campaign, which is set to conclude with Monday’s vote. Liberal Party leader and PM Mark Carney pledged to approve resource projects within two years through a dedicated office, while Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre vowed to open a Rapid Resource Project Office with an even shorter time limit – one year – to get “shovels in the ground” as fast as possible. 

Drawn-out permitting timelines have been a long-standing irritant for miners. Canada is the third-slowest jurisdiction in the world when it comes to the amount of time required to develop a mine, S&P Global found in a study released last year. At 27 years, the average lead time for Canada trailed only that of the United States, at 29 years, and Zambia, at 34 years.

“I sure hope that the talk of shorter timelines is real because it’s a serious problem in Canada,” Sprott Asset Management CEO John Ciampaglia said in an interview. “Whether it’s new mines, new infrastructure or new pipelines, the timelines to permit new projects are beyond reasonable. Everybody is talking about wanting to be open for business but I need to see it. So far, nothing has changed.”

Largest fund

With holdings of about $4.3 billion as of mid-April, Ciampaglia’s Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.U for USD; U.UN for CAD) is the world’s largest physical uranium fund.

Units of the trust lost about 12% of their value in the first quarter, dragged down by a decline in the uranium spot price. They’ve fallen about 31% in the past year.

Mine construction delays have hit the uranium market particularly hard in recent years as demand climbed on electrification and artificial intelligence’s insatiable appetite for power.

Uranium stockpiles help sustain supply as demand outstrips production by 50 million to 60 million lb. a year, according to World Nuclear Association data. Demand for uranium is projected to triple by 2040, underscoring the urgent need to develop mines.

“There is a structural supply deficit, and it won’t be fixed unless the world builds a lot of new greenfield capacity – and sooner rather than later,” Ciampaglia said. “New projects are quite critical. They need to come online.”

Athabasca basin

Canada’s biggest opportunity lies in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin. As companies such as Cameco (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) Denison Mines (TSX: DML) and NexGen Energy (TSX: NXE) look to advance uranium projects in the province, Ottawa should follow Washington’s lead in fast-tracking mine approvals, Ciampaglia says.

“Canada has a huge opportunity,” he said. “Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin has all sorts of undeveloped projects that have been stuck for 10 or 15 years. Politicians can talk all they want about reshoring the supply chain from China but the lead time for these projects is too long. We clearly need to take a different approach.”

Ciampaglia is especially irked to see setbacks pile up for NexGen Energy’s Rook I project, a long-awaited C$2.2 billion capex uranium mine and mill that could produce up to 30 million lbs. annually for at least 24 years.

Although Rook I has a provincial permit and full support from multiple Indigenous nations, a final federal approval is still lacking, two years after Saskatchewan gave the project the go-ahead.

‘Inaction and deceit’

Two rounds of Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) hearings are scheduled to take place next fall and in February 2026, with a final approval decision set to follow soon after – some seven years after NexGen began the permitting process.

With construction expected to take three and a half years, that would push the start of operations out to late 2029 or early 2030.

The hearings “come much later than anticipated,” Red Cloud Securities head of research David Talbot said in a note in March. “This is contrary to what was conveyed to NXE and Indigenous communities.”

The elongated permitting timeline is “an ominous read-through for any other projects just entering the process,” he added.

Delaying Rook I’s approval until after the second hearing is “beyond comprehension, inconsistent with previous direction from the CNSC and extremely detrimental to the interests of our communities, the people of Saskatchewan and Canadians across the country,” the Clearwater River Dene Nation, Metis Nation-Saskatchewan and Metis Nation-Saskatchewan Northern Region II said in a joint statement in March. Canada’s regulatory process has become “a tyranny of inaction, deceit and dishonesty,” they said.

For Ciampaglia, Rook I is “a case study in delays” typical of Canadian mining projects.

“The mine originally was supposed to come online in 2028. Now it’s 2030. Why 2030? Is it the capital or the deposit? No, it’s the federal permitting process. The provincial permit came quickly and it’s been bogged down with the federal permit ever since,” he said.

Construction boom

Global utilities aren’t waiting for Canada to pick up the pace.

Some 65 nuclear reactors are being built worldwide. By 2030, they could generate an additional 70 gigawatts of additional power – assuming enough uranium is available.

“People sometimes get distracted by the new shiny object in the room, whether it’s AI or data centres, but the reality is that out of the 60-plus reactors that are under construction today, half of them are in China,” Ciampaglia said. “China and India are driving the growth. For them it’s business as usual.”

Even Europe, which had seemingly sworn off nuclear power, has changed course.

“Since 2021, almost every Western country that was going down the path of letting nuclear reactors close prematurely and focusing on renewable energy has stopped and shifted,” he said. “The Netherlands, Belgium, France and the UK have all done complete flip-flops back to nuclear and have signalled they want to build more capacity. Countries like Poland are going to be building reactors for the first time. The shift has been monumental, and it’s been driven by net zero decarbonization goals, energy security and the growing realization that you cannot run highly industrialized economies on renewable energy.”

Long-term bull

These long-term trends are the main reason Ciampaglia remains bullish about uranium – despite the current spot market dynamics.

“We’re frustrated by the spot price right now but we remain very constructive on the medium and long-term fundamentals, which we think ultimately will pull the price higher,” he said.

“Obviously we’ve had a correction in the last few months, but we think it’s transitory,” he said. “With all the uncertainty going on in the world, our sense is that utilities have stepped away from the market waiting for more clarity on tariffs. They should get back to buying uranium in larger quantities.”

How high could spot prices go? While uranium’s “geopolitically charged” nature makes predictions risky, Ciampaglia points out that the spot price hit an all-time high of $136 per lb. in 2007 during the last boom cycle. When adjusted for inflation, that translates to about $200 per lb. today, he calculates.

With the spot price hovering just above $65 as of Thursday, “we’re a long way off from peak-cycle pricing,” he said.

A nuclear accident, of course, would change all that.

“Having a large-scale accident that shifts public sentiment away from the technology is always the bear case,” Ciampaglia said. “After (the 2011 accident at) Fukushima, we went into a 10-year bear market.”

The company said it produced 745,484 pounds of uranium oxide from its Langer Heinrich mine in Namibia, the highest since the mine resumed operations in March 2024.

The company also reported uranium sales of 872,435 pounds, compared to 500,143 pounds in the previous quarter.

Its shares were last up 26.5% at A$5.035, set for their highest one-day gain since February 2021.

The stock was also the top percentage gainer on the S&P/ASX 200 index, which was up 1.5%.

The average realized price of which uranium sales was about $69.9/pound, beating Citi’s expectation of about $60/pound.

The surge in Paladin drove a wider boost in uranium miners in Australia.

Shares of Boss Energy and Deep Yellow rose 10% and 11.4%, respectively, rebounding from sharp declines on Tuesday.

(By Adwitiya Srivastava; Editing by Varun H K)

Read More: Paladin faces irate investors in class action

The state-run miner said the deals will deliver 1.5 terawatt-hours of green power annually starting in 2026, sourced from Generadora Metropolitana — owned by Chile’s AME Group and France’s EDF — and GR Power Chile.

The contracts, awarded through a public tender, include lithium-ion battery storage and will run from January 2026 to December 2040. They will supply both current and future energy needs across Codelco’s operations.

“With these contracts, we are strengthening our plan to completely decarbonize our electricity grid by 2030,” chief executive Rubén Alvarado said in the statement. “This reinforces the path towards sustainable mining, aligned with our purpose of being a pillar of sustainable development in Chile and the world.”

Codelco began its shift to renewables in 2018, renegotiating legacy contracts and launching new tenders to replace coal-based power with cleaner, cheaper, and more stable energy sources.

One of those renegotiations, with Colbún and CTA, freed up capacity beginning in 2026, enabling a pair of tenders. The first, awarded in 2024, went to Atlas, Innergex, and Colbún for 1,800 GWh per year. The second, sparked by a renegotiation with Engie (CTA), led to the agreements just finalized.

The shift is expected to cut annual CO₂ emissions by 2.78 million tonnes, as Codelco replaces all remaining fossil-fuel electricity with renewables. The move also shields the company from potential carbon tax hikes and future regulatory costs.

Codelco currently consumes about 9% of Chile’s total electricity.

Since 2010, a trio of its team members have helped discover the Waterbury Lake and Patterson Lake South (PLS) deposits in the basin, projects later acquired by Paladin Energy (ASX, TSX: PDN) and Denison Mines (TSX: DML; NYSE: DNN), who have become C$1.5-billion-plus market cap uranium players. Strong results this spring from F3’s Broach Lake target, about 700 km north of Saskatoon, suggest the team might have found a third.

“Hardly anybody’s found one [big deposit], F3 CEO Dev Randhawa told The Northern Miner in an interview in Toronto. “Nobody’s found two. We found three. That just goes to the ability of the technical team.”

Uranium explorers have over the last 18 months been riding demand for nuclear as interest grows in zero-emissions energy to power artificial intelligence servers.

‘Where’s the fire?’

Broach Lake, located in the basin’s west about 12 km south of F3’s high-grade JR zone and north of Paladin’s Triple R deposit, is an area with “smoke,” Randhawa said.

“It’s a term geologists use when they haven’t found it yet. So, where’s the fire? The next step is to vector in and find that,” said Randhawa, who in 2013 was named one of The Northern Miner‘s Mining Persons of the Year, along with Fission Uranium’s president Ross McElroy.

Drillhole PLN25-205 at Broach intersected 33 metres of radioactivity, including a 0.56-metre interval registering more than 10,000 counts per second (cps) by spectrometer readings from 325 metres depth, F3 reported in mid-April. One 23.5-metre interval encountered 37,700 cps from 384 metres depth.

“This discovery is particularly meaningful as it is within the Clearwater Domain – a geological package predominantly thought to consist of intrusive rocks and historically considered less prospective for uranium mineralization,” Sam Hartmann, vice-president for exploration, said in a release. Hartmann worked on the Waterbury Lake and PLS finds as part of the geology team with Fission Energy and chief geologist with Fission Uranium.

‘Proven’ track record

“F3’s technical team has yet again proven their ability to unlock and define novel high-grade uranium domains within the western Athabasca Basin,” Haywood Capital Markets mining analyst Marcus Giannini said in a note.

Drilling in March at Broach intersected six zones of radioactivity ranging between 300 cps and 720 cps over a 90-metre interval in hole PLN25-202.

Finding the structure

But the key to making sure Broach is more than just a potential high-grade pod is connecting it with a larger structure, Randhawa said.

He cited drill results from December at JR – adjacent to Broach – that cut 7.5 metres at 30.9% uranium oxide (U3O8), including an ultra-high grade core with 4.5 metres of 50.1% U3O8.

The high-grade core “indicates potential for a major new Athabasca discovery,” SCP Resource Finance mining analyst Justin Chan said in a note then.

“When you start talking about mergers and acquisitions, we need to show that we have more than one pod now, and hopefully this Broach is one of them,” Randhawa said. “If you look at Triple R, we found very little bits, then massive amounts. It was just like pearls on a necklace, because [uranium] conductors generally tend to be straight. We need to show it’s a system. So that’s what a bigger company would secure. We need to acquire it.”

Deposit finders

Randhawa initially helmed Fission Energy, which discovered the high-grade J zone at Waterbury in the basin’s west in 2010. Denison acquired Fission for C$70 million in 2013. Under Fission Energy, the team also found PLS’ Triple R deposit, one of the basin’s largest uranium resources.

Randhawa also led spinout Fission Uranium, which Paladin acquired along with PLS last December in a C$1.1 billion deal. F3 president Raymond Ashley worked as vice-president exploration for Fission Energy.

“Real estate is ‘location, location, location’” Randhawa said. “Rick Rule and other smart people will tell you that when it comes to junior mining, it’s management, management, management. That’s where our big advantage is over a lot of other companies, having management that knows how to monetize, but also knows how to find it first, then cut deals with it.”

Two weeks into the second quarter, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $1.36 trillion, up $79.7 billion so far in 2025.

The total stock market valuation of the world’s biggest mining companies remains almost $400 billion below the peak hit in the second quarter of 2022.

This snapshot was taken at the close of trading on 17 April and not at the start of Q2 as usual to avoid some of the market distortions brought on by the chaotic weeks following Trump’s on-again off-again tariffs.

This flatters the index to some extent as gold stocks rode the coattails of the record setting bullion price and almost all big names regained some ground after the severe sell-off during the first week of April.

Newcomers

The volatile trading saw the greatest number of new entries – six in all – in a quarter since MINING.COM started tracking the Top 50 six years ago. From $6.7 billion at the end of 2024, the lowest ranked entry must now be worth $8 billion.

Mining and metals arguably suffered some of the biggest swings and roundabouts as the economic effects of a trade war and the focus on critical minerals played havoc – exemplified by the volatility on copper markets.

The bellwether metal hit a record high in the US at the end of March, only to plunge more than 20% over the next week and a half and then make up a big chunk of those losses going into the long weekend.

Amid the hectic trading, copper producers and diversified companies with large base metal portfolios lost a combined $53 billion to April 17 and are now trading $205 billion below their collective peak end-Sep 2024 as the sector’s ranks thin.

Lundin Mining dropped out of the Top 50 during Q1 following another copper counter, Poland’s KGHM, which did not make the cut off in Q4 last year. Q1 was a mixed blessing for the Canadian mining empire with the copper producer making way for Lundin Gold, entering the Top 50 for the first time after doubling in value in USD terms to $10.1 billion in Toronto.

Huayou Cobalt’s inclusion proved to be short-lived while South32 failed to make the cut for the first time since being spun out of BHP a decade ago. The base metals sans copper producer sits at position 51 after being narrowly edged out by Shanjin International Gold, so the stock may well return if (and not necessarily when) profit-taking in gold and gold stocks starts to make sense.

Another notable mover of 2025 is Amman Mineral, the worst performer in the index which lost over $10 billion in value as reality about its piercing run since its debut in Jakarta early 2023 continues to set in. The Indonesian copper-gold company is now worth an eye-catching $20 billion less than its high point at the end of Q2 last year, even after investors ran up the stock more than 20% just in the last week.

Nothing counters gold

While the direction of the copper price over the last few months was almost impossible to judge, gold’s record breaking run looked inevitable. At $3,420 per ounce gold at the time of writing, the yellow metal has now finally also surpassed its 1980 peak in inflation-adjusted terms.

Unsurprisingly, precious metals counters dominate the best performer list and make up the majority of new entrants. Gold, silver and PGM miners and royalty companies now represent a third of the value of the Top 50. The strength in precious metals has also seen Canada overtake Australia for the first time in terms of the value of miners headquartered there.

At 22% of the index, the 13 Canadian companies collectively are worth a smidgen under $300 billion compared to $275 billion for the now eight Australian firms with the inclusion for the first time of Sydney-based gold stock Evolution Mining. In their current form Melbourne-based BHP and Rio Tinto have been the top two global mining stocks since the turn of the century, together worth $220 billion today.

The MINING.COM Top 50 tracks stock value in USD terms not share price gains on local exchange and many stocks in the ranking benefitted from strengthening currencies against the USD.

South Africa’s Harmony Gold tops the gainers after jumping 24 spots to enter the ranking at no 37 following a 117% advance since end-2024. Like Harmony, Goldfields also benefited from the strong rand against the greenback, lifting the Johannesburg-based company’s shares by 83% year to date.

Russia’s Polyus, which added $14.4 billion in Q1, was only beaten by the top two gold stocks Newmont and Agnico Eagle which added $18.6 billion and $19.9 billion year to date in market cap gains. The ruble has strengthened by 20% against the US dollar in 2025 and Norilsk Nickel, thanks to captive investors on the MCX, has maintained its good standing in the Top 50 despite sanctions and trading restrictions. Norilsk is still worth north of $20 billion but still a far cry from its peak position as the world’s number 5 most valuable mining company reached mid-2021.

London-listed Fresnillo returns to the index after years in the wilderness thanks to a 74% surge in value for the Mexican silver and gold miner, majority owned by Mexican industrial group Peñoles. Together with Southern Copper, owned by Grupo Mexico, the country now represents nearly 6% of the value of the Top 50.

Gold counters are likely to only increase in number and size over the rest of 2025. Kazatomprom dual-listed in London and Astana in 2018, and Uzbekistan is now readying an IPO for Navoi Mining and Metallurgy Combinat – the world’s fourth largest gold mining company and significant uranium producer later this year.

Rare earth representation

China Northern Rare Earth is the only producer of the 17 elements in the ranking and despite the frenzy surrounding the sector as China tightens control. There are no obvious REE candidates that could join the Top 50 in short order.

MP Materials, which operates the Mountain Pass mine in California, has surged by 69% in value year to date but the Las Vegas-based company is still worth only $4.3 billion.

The company’s valuation peaked above $8 billion in March 2022, but the whole mining industry was riding high at the time and the high price ticket for entry at the time meant it fell just outside the ranking. Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths have also come close in the past and is up 26% this year for a valuation of $5.3 billion.

Lithium down to a single stock

Lithium’s representation in the ranking is down from six companies to a single stock – Chile’s SQM languishing in position 42 and worth less than $10 billion – following the exit of China’s Tianqi and US-based Albemarle during the quarter, with the latter dropping by 38% in 2025.

The value destruction caused by the slump in lithium prices has been nothing short of astonishing. Lithium stocks in the index peaked in the second quarter of 2022 with a combined value of nearly $120 billion.

While Albemarle now worth $6.2 billion may well make a comeback (the longer term prospects for lithium demand remains bright), the absorption of Arcadium by Rio Tinto makes it unlikely that the Top 50 will see a rush of lithium stocks any time soon, a rebound of the commodity notwithstanding.

Zangge Mining, which does derive a good proportion of income from lithium, but is mostly a fertilizer producer, is bubbling under at number 53. The Chinese company may not stick around either – it’s the subject of takeover overtures by Zijing Mining, which also helps explain the 25% rise in the stock on the Shenzen exchange in USD terms.

Notes:

Source: MINING.COM, stock exchange data, company reports. Share data from primary-listed exchange at close April 17/18, 2025 close of trading converted to US$ where applicable. Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.

As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile’s Codelco, Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining (the gold and uranium giant may list later this year), Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.

Another central criterion was the depth of involvement in the industry, and how far upstream is the bulk of its revenue, before an enterprise can rightfully be called a mining company.

For instance, should smelter companies or commodity traders that own minority stakes in mining assets be included, especially if these investments have no operational component or even warrant a seat on the board?

This is a common structure in Asia and excluding these types of companies removed well-known names like Japan’s Marubeni and Mitsui, Korea Zinc and Chile’s Copec.

Levels of operational or strategic involvement and size of shareholding were other central considerations. Do streaming and royalty companies that receive metals from mining operations without shareholding qualify or are they just specialized financing vehicles? We included Franco Nevada, Royal Gold and Wheaton Precious Metals on the basis of their deep involvement in the industry.

Vertically integrated concerns like Alcoa and energy companies such as Shenhua Energy or Bayan Resources where power, ports and railways make up a large portion of revenues pose a problem. The revenue mix also tends to change alongside volatile coal prices. Same goes for battery makers like China’s CATL which is increasingly moving upstream, but where mining will continue to represent a small portion of its valuation.

Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. We’ve included Angloplat in the ranking but excluded Kumba Iron Ore in which Anglo has a 70% stake to avoid double counting. Similarly we excluded Hindustan Zinc which is listed separately but majority owned by Vedanta.

With other groups like Mexico’s Penoles where refining and chemicals make up a substantial part of the business where possible the Top 50 would include separately listed operating subsidiaries that are dedicated to mining. This is also why Southern Copper represents Grupo Mexico in the ranking.

Many steelmakers own and often operate iron ore and other metal mines, but in the interest of balance and diversity we excluded the steel industry, and with that many companies that have substantial mining assets including giants like ArcelorMittal, Magnitogorsk, Ternium, Baosteel and many others.

Head office refers to operational headquarters wherever applicable, for example BHP and Rio Tinto are shown as Melbourne, Australia, but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule. We consider the company’s HQ to be in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s.

Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking or suggest a different methodology: email Frik Els at fels@mining.com with Top 50 in the subject line.

Two weeks into the second quarter, the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $1.36 trillion, up $79.7 billion so far in 2025.

The total stock market valuation of the world’s biggest mining companies remains almost $400 billion below the peak hit in the second quarter of 2022.

This snapshot was taken at the close of trading on April 17 and not at the start of Q2 as usual to avoid some of the market distortions brought on by the chaotic weeks following Trump’s on-again off-again tariffs.

This flatters the index to some extent as gold stocks rode the coattails of the record setting bullion price and almost all big names regained some ground after the severe sell-off during the first week of April.

Newcomers

The volatile trading saw the greatest number of new entries – six in all – in a quarter since MINING.COM started tracking the Top 50 six years ago. From $6.7 billion at the end of 2024, the lowest ranked entry must now be worth $8 billion.

Mining and metals arguably suffered some of the biggest swings and roundabouts as the economic effects of a trade war and the focus on critical minerals played havoc – exemplified by the volatility on copper markets.

The bellwether metal hit a record high in the US at the end of March, only to plunge more than 20% over the next week and a half and then make up a big chunk of those losses going into the long weekend.

Amid the hectic trading, copper producers and diversified companies with large base metal portfolios lost a combined $53 billion to April 17 and are now trading $205 billion below their collective peak end-Sep 2024 as the sector’s ranks thin.

Lundin Mining dropped out of the Top 50 during Q1 following another copper counter, Poland’s KGHM, which did not make the cut off in Q4 last year. Q1 was a mixed blessing for the Canadian mining empire with the copper producer making way for Lundin Gold, entering the Top 50 for the first time after doubling in value in USD terms to $10.1 billion in Toronto.

Huayou Cobalt’s inclusion proved to be short-lived while South32 failed to make the cut for the first time since being spun out of BHP a decade ago. The base metals sans copper producer sits at position 51 after being narrowly edged out by Shanjin International Gold, so the stock may well return if (and not necessarily when) profit-taking in gold and gold stocks starts to make sense.

Another notable mover of 2025 is Amman Mineral, the worst performer in the index which lost over $10 billion in value as reality about its piercing run since its debut in Jakarta early 2023 continues to set in. The Indonesian copper-gold company is now worth an eye-catching $20 billion less than its high point at the end of Q2 last year, even after investors ran up the stock more than 20% just in the last week.

Nothing counters gold

While the direction of the copper price over the last few months was almost impossible to judge, gold’s record breaking run looked inevitable. At $3,420 per ounce gold at the time of writing, the yellow metal has now finally also surpassed its 1980 peak in inflation-adjusted terms.

Unsurprisingly, precious metals counters dominate the best performer list and make up the majority of new entrants. Gold, silver and PGM miners and royalty companies now represent a third of the value of the Top 50. The strength in precious metals has also seen Canada overtake Australia for the first time in terms of the value of miners headquartered there.

At 22% of the index, the 13 Canadian companies collectively are worth a smidgen under $300 billion compared to $275 billion for the now eight Australian firms with the inclusion for the first time of Sydney-based gold stock Evolution Mining. In their current form Melbourne-based BHP and Rio Tinto have been the top two global mining stocks since the turn of the century, together worth $220 billion today.

The MINING.COM Top 50 tracks stock value in USD terms not share price gains on local exchange and many stocks in the ranking benefitted from strengthening currencies against the USD.

South Africa’s Harmony Gold tops the gainers after jumping 24 spots to enter the ranking at no 37 following a 117% advance since end-2024. Like Harmony, Goldfields also benefited from the strong rand against the greenback, lifting the Johannesburg-based company’s shares by 83% year to date.

Russia’s Polyus, which added $14.4 billion in Q1, was only beaten by the top two gold stocks Newmont and Agnico Eagle which added $18.6 billion and $19.9 billion year to date in market cap gains. The ruble has strengthened by 20% against the US dollar in 2025 and Norilsk Nickel, thanks to captive investors on the MCX, has maintained its good standing in the Top 50 despite sanctions and trading restrictions. Norilsk is still worth north of $20 billion but still a far cry from its peak position as the world’s number 5 most valuable mining company reached mid-2021.

London-listed Fresnillo returns to the index after years in the wilderness thanks to a 74% surge in value for the Mexican silver and gold miner, majority owned by Mexican industrial group Peñoles. Together with Southern Copper, owned by Grupo Mexico, the country now represents nearly 6% of the value of the Top 50.

Gold counters are likely to only increase in number and size over the rest of 2025. Kazatomprom dual-listed in London and Astana in 2018, and Uzbekistan is now readying an IPO for Navoi Mining and Metallurgy Combinat – the world’s fourth largest gold mining company and significant uranium producer later this year.

Rare earth representation

China Northern Rare Earth is the only producer of the 17 elements in the ranking and despite the frenzy surrounding the sector as China tightens control. There are no obvious REE candidates that could join the Top 50 in short order.

MP Materials, which operates the Mountain Pass mine in California, has surged by 69% in value year to date but the Las Vegas-based company is still worth only $4.3 billion.

The company’s valuation peaked above $8 billion in March 2022, but the whole mining industry was riding high at the time and the high price ticket for entry at the time meant it fell just outside the ranking. Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths have also come close in the past and is up 26% this year for a valuation of $5.3 billion.

Lithium down to a single stock

Lithium’s representation in the ranking is down from six companies to a single stock – Chile’s SQM languishing in position 42 and worth less than $10 billion – following the exit of China’s Tianqi and US-based Albemarle during the quarter, with the latter dropping by 38% in 2025.

The value destruction caused by the slump in lithium prices has been nothing short of astonishing. Lithium stocks in the index peaked in the second quarter of 2022 with a combined value of nearly $120 billion.

While Albemarle now worth $6.2 billion may well make a comeback (the longer term prospects for lithium demand remains bright), the absorption of Arcadium by Rio Tinto makes it unlikely that the Top 50 will see a rush of lithium stocks any time soon, a rebound of the commodity notwithstanding.

Zangge Mining, which does derive a good proportion of income from lithium, but is mostly a fertilizer producer, is bubbling under at number 53. The Chinese company may not stick around either – it’s the subject of takeover overtures by Zijing Mining, which also helps explain the 25% rise in the stock on the Shenzen exchange in USD terms.

Notes:

Source: MINING.COM, stock exchange data, company reports. Share data from primary-listed exchange at close April 17/18, 2025 close of trading converted to US$ where applicable. Percentage change based on US$ market cap difference, not share price change in local currency.

As with any ranking, criteria for inclusion are contentious. We decided to exclude unlisted and state-owned enterprises at the outset due to a lack of information. That, of course, excludes giants like Chile’s Codelco, Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining (the gold and uranium giant may list later this year), Eurochem, a major potash firm, and a number of entities in China and developing countries around the world.

Another central criterion was the depth of involvement in the industry, and how far upstream is the bulk of its revenue, before an enterprise can rightfully be called a mining company.

For instance, should smelter companies or commodity traders that own minority stakes in mining assets be included, especially if these investments have no operational component or even warrant a seat on the board?

This is a common structure in Asia and excluding these types of companies removed well-known names like Japan’s Marubeni and Mitsui, Korea Zinc and Chile’s Copec.

Levels of operational or strategic involvement and size of shareholding were other central considerations. Do streaming and royalty companies that receive metals from mining operations without shareholding qualify or are they just specialized financing vehicles? We included Franco Nevada, Royal Gold and Wheaton Precious Metals on the basis of their deep involvement in the industry.

Vertically integrated concerns like Alcoa and energy companies such as Shenhua Energy or Bayan Resources where power, ports and railways make up a large portion of revenues pose a problem. The revenue mix also tends to change alongside volatile coal prices. Same goes for battery makers like China’s CATL which is increasingly moving upstream, but where mining will continue to represent a small portion of its valuation.

Another consideration is diversified companies such as Anglo American with separately listed majority-owned subsidiaries. We’ve included Angloplat in the ranking but excluded Kumba Iron Ore in which Anglo has a 70% stake to avoid double counting. Similarly we excluded Hindustan Zinc which is listed separately but majority owned by Vedanta.

With other groups like Mexico’s Penoles where refining and chemicals make up a substantial part of the business where possible the Top 50 would include separately listed operating subsidiaries that are dedicated to mining. This is also why Southern Copper represents Grupo Mexico in the ranking.

Many steelmakers own and often operate iron ore and other metal mines, but in the interest of balance and diversity we excluded the steel industry, and with that many companies that have substantial mining assets including giants like ArcelorMittal, Magnitogorsk, Ternium, Baosteel and many others.

Head office refers to operational headquarters wherever applicable, for example BHP and Rio Tinto are shown as Melbourne, Australia, but Antofagasta is the exception that proves the rule. We consider the company’s HQ to be in London, where it has been listed since the late 1800s.

Please let us know of any errors, omissions, deletions or additions to the ranking or suggest a different methodology: email Frik Els at fels@mining.com with Top 50 in the subject line.

Australia has two major political parties, Labor and Liberal, though the Liberal Party and National Party have an alliance known as the Coalition.

Before the election was called in late March, the two main parties were neck and neck in the polls.

Peter Dutton, leader of the conservative Liberal Party, initially leaned into the early popularity of US President Donald Trump, a move that has led to him being nicknamed “Trump Lite” or “Temu Trump”.

That strategy seems to have backfired in recent weeks, with Dutton and the Liberals slipping in the polls.

While the Australian Labor Party, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, is leading on a two-party preferred basis, if it can not win a majority, it will likely look to the Australian Greens for support to be able to form government.

Campaigns launched

Both Labor and the Coalition formally launched their campaigns on Sunday, April 13.

Albanese held his campaign launch in Perth in a nod to the importance of Western Australian resources sector.

He was introduced by popular WA Premier Roger Cook, who won re-election last month in a landslide.

Two days before the launch, Albanese and Resources Minister Madeleine King were hosted by Rio Tinto during a visit to the Pilbara town of Karratha.

Labor did not outline any new policies to support the resources sector but has pledged A$8 billion ($5.1 billion) of additional investment in renewable energy and low emissions technologies via an expansion of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. 

Dutton launched his campaign in Sydney and promised to be a “friend of the mining and resources sector”.

He has warned Labor would shut down mining, particularly if it needs the support of the Greens.

Dutton and Shadow Resources Minister Susan McDonald unveiled the Coalition’s “Plan for a Strong Resources Industry”, which promises to cut red and green tape, expand the critical minerals list to include uranium, zinc, bauxite, alumina, aluminium, potash, phosphate and tin, and refocus the critical minerals strategy to better align with the defence and strategic needs of Australia and its allies.  

The plan also included a A$3.4 billion investment in Geoscience Australia over 35 years to map all of Australia, an announcement slammed by Albanese.

“That was in last year’s budget, last year’s budget that the Coalition, now, more than a year later, they’ve decided to pretend that it’s a new policy announcement at this election,” he told reporters. 

Three years of Albanese

The current government has a mixed record when it comes to mining.

One of the initiatives popular with the mining sector was the establishment of the Critical Minerals Production Tax Incentive (CMPTI), a 10% tax credit for processing and refining costs of Australia’s 31 critical minerals from July 1, 2027.

The bill was passed by the Senate in February.

“This is the first time any Australian government has put their money where their mouth is for the critical minerals industry,” the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) CEO Warren Pearce said.

“This will stimulate billions in new investment in critical minerals processing, which will be far more valuable than the incentives on offer.”

One of the low points of the government’s relationship with miners was the rejection of Regis Resources’ (ASX: RRL) McPhillamys gold mine last year.

After a lengthy approvals process, the proposed mine was approved by New South Wales and federal regulators but was overturned by federal Environment Minister Tania Plibersek on Aboriginal heritage grounds.

“That is a really bad message for Australia and the rest of the world,” Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) chair Andrew Michelmore told the Melbourne Mining Club in March.

Last year, the government introduced the ‘Same Job, Same Pay’ industrial relations legislation, which was slammed by BHP (ASX: BHP) as requiring it to pay inexperienced labor hire workers the same as a worker with decades of experience, impacting costs and productivity.

Dutton said he would not repeal the law.

“I understand the difficulty for some of the companies who are facing already a fairly militant union sector and want reforms but that’s our position,” he said on April 3.

Coalition all-in on nuclear

One of the Coalition’s key election policies is a plan to introduce nuclear energy into Australia’s power mix, which has been estimated to cost A$331 billion.

The policy has won the support of the MCA, while BHP is open to nuclear being considered.

“For Australia to be able to compete globally – and let’s face it, there’s economic headwinds that we’re leaning into in the coming years and decades in Australia – we have to be able to keep existing businesses competitive and to be able to grow new industries to overcome some of those headwinds,” BHP CEO Mike Henry told reporters in February.

“That requires affordable, reliable supply of electricity, whilst meeting this long-term ambition of being net zero. In order to achieve that, we have been strong proponents of a technology neutral strategy, and so, are we supportive of nuclear being part of the mix for consideration? Yes.”

Fortescue (ASX: FMG) founder and executive chairman Andrew Forrest has a different view, telling a Perth event on April 10 that he was close to the nuclear industry and knew it well after weighing up its potential for the past two decades.

He questioned why the taxpayer should have to pay for technology he described as “high cost and high risk” when compared to renewables.

“I know young males think nuclear is pretty cool but all I can say is, that’s until they’re educated. That’s until they’re told it’s not cool, it’s highly expensive to build, it’s almost impossible to take down and its power costs are nothing fancy at all,” Forrest said.

Permitting in focus

Lengthy approvals processes are a sticking point for the mining sector, something the Coalition has promised to address.

In a speech to the WA Mining Club in March, MCA chief executive Tania Constable accused the Albanese government of taking “a particular bent against our industry”.

“There is no reason in 2025 that environmental assessments and approvals could not move from years to hours, with the use of AI and enhanced environmental data,” she said.

Miners have been particularly vocal in its opposition against the government’s now-defunct Nature Positive legislation, which proposed the establishment of a national environmental protection agency, in addition to existing state agencies.

The bill never passed the Senate after protests from the resources sector and WA Premier Roger Cook, with even the Greens opposing it.

Plibersek says Labor is still keen to establish a federal environmental protection agency, but rather than duplicating approvals processes, she maintains it would speed up permitting.

“Our laws are 25 years old. They’re not fit for purpose, they don’t protect the environment, they’re not good for business,” she told the ABC on April 12.

“We want better environmental protections and faster, clearer decision making. We can do both, but it’s going to take common sense and compromise.”

The same day, WA Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash told reporters the policy would have a “devastating” impact on mining projects.

Incentive schemes under threat

The Coalition has committed to repeal the CMPTI, with Dutton long maintaining that projects needed to be economically viable on their own.

Former WA Nationals leader turned federal Nationals candidate Mia Davies criticised the stance.

“Good policy deserves support,” she told the ABC on April 15. 

Her comments were welcomed by AMEC CEO Warren Pearce, which described the CMPTI as a policy that focused on realising more value from Australia’s minerals.

“Right now, it is the only policy that does so – that’s the truth of it,” he said.

In March’s federal budget, it was revealed that it would not extend the Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive (JMEI).

Earlier this year, modelling by BDO, commissioned by AMEC, found the JMEI had stimulated A$404 million in greenfield exploration activity since 2017, at a cost to taxpayers of A$182.2 million in credits.

The Coalition has vowed to reintroduce the JMEI, pledging A$100 million for the scheme.

“The reinstatement of the incentive is necessary to decrease the risk for junior explorers,” MCA’s Constable said.

“Australia’s vibrant junior exploration sector plays a crucial role in the mining ecosystem by driving innovation, discovering new mineral deposits, and providing the foundation for future large-scale mining operations.”

Strategic minerals reserve

In a statement responding to US tariffs on April 3, Albanese announced that if re-elected, his government would establish a Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve.

Albanese and King have each said more details of the policy would be provided before the election.

King’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Cook confirmed he was working “closely” with Albanese on the details of the policy.

AMEC’s Pearce suggested a Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve could further incentivize critical minerals exploration and production and create a strategic stockpile that provided greater resilience against global trade measures, and greater influence over critical mineral supply chains.

“Make no mistake. Australia is a critical minerals powerhouse. We can be the reliable supplier of critical minerals to the world, including the United States,” he said.

“Given the ground is moving so quickly, the onus is now on our political parties, to figure out how best to take advantage of this opportunity.”

The projects – which would supply copper, antimony and other minerals – have been granted FAST-41 status, a federal initiative launched in 2015 to streamline approvals of critical infrastructure.

The White House said it will add more projects.

The initial 10 are listed on a US federal website where their permitting progress can be publicly tracked, part of what the Trump administration calls a push for greater transparency and faster permitting.

“This transparency leads to greater accountability, ensuring a more efficient process,” the White House said in a statement.

The move boosts a proposed Idaho antimony and gold mine from Perpetua Resources, a proposed Arizona copper mine from Rio Tinto, a proposed Montana copper and silver mine from Hecla Mining, expansion of Albemarle’s Nevada lithium mine, an Arkansas direct lithium extraction project from Standard Lithium, and an Alabama metallurgical coal project from Warrior Met Coal, among others. Metallurgical coal is used to make steel.

Perpetua said it was “honored by this selection … which validates the urgency and importance of our project for America’s economic and national security.”

Rio said it believes its Resolution copper project in Arizona “is vital to securing America’s energy future and infrastructure needs with a domestic supply of copper.”

Albemarle said it looks “forward to further engaging with the administration as it seeks to advance a US lithium supply chain.”

Standard Lithium and Warrior were not immediately available to comment.

South32’s Hermosa zinc-manganese project in Arizona was fast-tracked by former President Joe Biden, the first mine to receive the FAST-41 treatment.

Trump earlier this week ordered a probe into potential new tariffs on all US critical minerals imports, a major escalation in his dispute with global trade partners and an attempt to pressure industry leader China.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Chris Reese)

Australian Newcastle futures declined to $94.25 a ton on Thursday, the lowest for a front-month contract since May 2021. Seaborne coal prices have collapsed in recent months after milder winter weather curbed demand in China and other major Asian importers.

China’s fuel oversupply was exacerbated by a drop in output from thermal power plants in the first quarter, while coal production hit an all-time high last month. And a tit-for-tat trade war between the world’s two largest economies threatens economic growth and consumption of coal.

“We expect the seaborne market to track sideways for a while as the effects of global trade disruptions play out,” said Steve Hulton, senior vice president of coal markets at Rystad Energy. “However, in our view, the likely price direction is up as there are producers at the top end of the cost curve who are hurting at prices below $100 per ton.”

Chinese spot coal prices are near the rates of long-term contracts set by the government, according to the China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association, a theoretical bottom for the market.

That, along with with action from producers to cut back output, could slow price declines. Glencore Plc, the world’s biggest coal shipper, said last month that it is cutting planned production at its Cerrejon mine in Colombia to halt a prolonged collapse in prices.

Read More: China to keep building coal plants through 2027, state planner says

The decision gives BHP, the world’s largest mining company, more time to extract between 13 and 15 million tonnes of thermal coal from what is currently NSW’s largest coal mine. The miner had announced in 2022 that it would wind down operations at Mount Arthur by 2030 — 15 years earlier than initially planned — after failing to find a buyer and as the mine approaches the end of its economic viability.

As part of its exit strategy, BHP has partnered with renewable energy and infrastructure firm ACCIONA Energía to explore converting the 7,000-hectare site into a pumped hydro energy storage facility. The proposal aligns with community calls to repurpose the site for long-term regional benefit.

“The community has told us they want to see Mt Arthur repurposed when mining ends,” BHP president Australia Geraldine Slattery said in a statement. “This study will examine the role pumped hydro at the Mt Arthur site could play in the region’s future.”

Preliminary studies suggest the project could support about 1,000 construction jobs in the Upper Hunter region, stimulate local economic activity in Muswellbrook, and provide enough power for up to 500,000 homes in New South Wales each day.

Life beyond coal

ACCIONA Energía, which operates more than 14 GW of generation capacity worldwide and is expanding rapidly in Australia, will lead a 12-month due diligence program to assess the project’s technical and commercial viability. The company already manages 600 MW of operating assets in Australia and has 1.3 GW under commissioning.

BHP also announced a A$30 million ($19m) community fund to support the Upper Hunter region’s transition beyond coal. The fund will be co-managed with local stakeholders and focus on job creation, economic empowerment, and industry diversification.

Pumped hydro systems provide dispatchable electricity by storing energy in the form of water at elevation. When demand spikes, the water is released downhill through turbines to generate power. 

BHP said that Mount Arthur’s topography and catchment potential make it well-suited for such a transformation.

That policy may raise questions about China’s commitment to phasing down coal use during the 2026-2030 period, although it says new coal projects are considered a back-up for renewable generation whose output depends on sunlight and wind conditions.

The guidelines, issued by the state planner and energy regulator, say that newly built coal plants should have 10-20% lower carbon emissions per unit of power output than the 2024 fleet, and also call for upgrades to some existing coal plants to meet those conditions.

Newly built and upgraded coal plants should also be able to safely and reliably adjust their output to help meet peak power demand.

The plan follows a report from the China Coal Association last week that said China’s coal consumption would not peak until 2028 – later than other forecasts that said China’s coal consumption could peak this year.

Rising coal usage in the power and chemicals sectors this year will support a small uptick in consumption, the association said, offsetting declining demand from the steel and building material industries.

(By Colleen Howe; Editing by David Holmes)

The analysis, conducted independently by Rhodium Group, assesses the carbon removal sector’s economic opportunities. The report shows that a carbon removal industry capable of removing 100 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year would add between 95,000 and 130,000 lasting jobs across the United States.

Carbon removal is an industry of technologies and approaches that remove excess carbon dioxide and permanently store it. Some of these technologies — namely enhanced rock weathering (ERW), ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) and direct ocean capture — are job creators, according to the report.

Carbon removal is different from carbon capture, a process which captures some or all of the carbon at a point of emission — like a power plant. Carbon removal permanently removes and stores legacy carbon dioxide pollution already in the atmosphere, and is not connected to a point of emission.

Carbon removal technology ERW specifically could help create 22,000 to 29,500 ongoing jobs as mining and quarry workers are one of the top occupations associated with ERW projects while OAE carbon removal technology could create 13,000 to 17,500 ongoing jobs, the report found.

Mining and quarry workers are again one of the top occupations associated with these OAE projects.  OAE methods can repurpose byproducts from industrial processes, like steel slag. These processes can also create a high-purity alkalinity which provides added potential for critical mineral extraction.

Giana Amador, executive director of the Carbon Removal Alliance, said the organization is focused on fighting climate change by bringing to light this new sector of solutions.

“We work closely with the Rhodium Group specifically to better understand the economic and jobs potential of what a carbon removal industry could look like at scale. These are new solutions that have been in development for about a decade and can really lead to job creation and economic benefits across the US,” Amador told MINING.com in an interview.

“[They] don’t just reduce emissions, which typically is the strategy that we think about using when we think about fighting climate change — things like renewable energy, electric vehicles, but the solutions that we focus on are actually how we clean up carbon that’s already in the atmosphere,” Amador said.

“We work with innovators who are developing a wide range of technologies, including ones who are using minerals from the mining sector,” she said. “We work with around 30 companies who are all developing cutting edge technologies and are beginning to deploy projects across the globe.”

Eli Cain, senior policy manager at Carbon Removal Alliance, joined the organization from the US Department of Energy National Laboratories,  where he helped manage carbon removal policies.

“There are three different ways that we can durably take carbon out of the atmosphere — through plants and biomass [and] through chemicals that sequester CO2. And you can do it through minerals that already react very naturally on very long timescales with atmospheric CO2 and capture that,” Cain said.

“The more traditional ones are things like basalt or limestone or dunite or olivine, wollastonite — all of these are mined in the US, and a lot of them in Canada as well. Canada does a great job on this, we want to bring more of that into the United States.”

On the economic front carbon removal work can be like how partnerships can make the most of some mining byproduct that exists on mines already. Partnerships between carbon removal companies and mining companies can open up new revenue streams for miners, Cain noted.

ARCA climate technologies, one of the Carbon Removal Aliance’s member organizations, published a whitepaper this year reporting that mine waste could be transformed into a ‘net-zero, multi-billion dollar opportunity’.

Mining companies have their own emissions targets, and Cain said the Alliance has heard from suppliers that they can offer cheap and effective decarbonization solutions.

“One of the reasons we’re really excited about partnerships between carbon removal and mining companies is because the carbon industry is going so quickly, it means that we will need more of these mine resources in order to accomplish their goals,” Cain said.

“And we’re not talking like one new mine — we’re talking like the scale of the global cement industry today.”

The state-controlled company wants the authorities to let it pay the 1.3 billion zloty ($345 million) due this year in installments starting in January 2026, it said in a statement on Friday. It’s the second time this week that the miner of coal for steel production is seeking financial relief from public institutions. On Monday, it said it would apply for a 1.6 billion zloty refund from the country’s power price subsidy fund.

The board is closely monitoring the financial and liquidity situation and is taking a “range of steps to avoid liquidity shortage,” JSW deputy chief executive officer Remigiusz Krzyzanowski said at an earnings call on Wednesday, when asked if the firm is prepared for cash shortage at the end of the year.

In November, the company employing more than 32,000 people announced an ambitious plan to trim investments and costs, while boosting production. Even as it has made some progress, JSW is still tapping its rainy-day fund to improve cash flows. Only this year, it has paid out 2.2 billion zloty from the fund.

The scale of the efforts to slash costs is “definitely too small,” according to Erste Group Bank AG’s analyst Jakub Szkopek, who predicts that JSW continued to consume “significant” amounts of surplus cash in the first quarter. The company is due to release its earnings report for the January-March period on May 20.

“Within two or three quarters the cash reserves will run out and the situation will become bleak,” Szkopek warned in a note earlier this week.

JSW shares rebounded from a 3.6% decline on Friday and were little changed at 1:20 p.m. in Warsaw, taking this week’s gain to 2.1%.

(By Maciej Martewicz)

The Liberal Party leader said at a campaign stop in Calgary that his government would create a Major Federal Project Office with a “one project, one review” mandate. The aim would be to eliminate duplication of federal and provincial environmental assessments, speeding up reviews.

“We are going to aggressively develop projects that are in the national interest in order to protect Canada’s energy security, diversify our trade, and enhance our long-term competitiveness — all while reducing emissions,” Carney said in a statement. “We can lead the energy transition while ensuring affordable energy at home and building the strongest economy in the G-7.”

Canada ships some 4 million barrels of crude a day to the US — the vast majority of its production — and also relies on a pipeline that goes through midwestern states to supply provinces in the east. US President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s economy and sovereignty have intensified pressure to accelerate projects that reduce its dependence on the US.

Carney’s rival in the April 28 election, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, has also pledged a single project office with a maximum timeline for decisions of one year. Poilievre has said Indigenous communities would be involved at the outset of major projects, but Carney on Wednesday said Poilievre’s plan fails to account for Indigenous rights.

Critical minerals

The Liberal leader also announced Wednesday he would expand a critical minerals exploration tax credit to include minerals necessary for defense, semiconductors, energy and other clean technologies. His government would broaden the Canadian exploration expense to include the costs of technical studies, and modify the clean manufacturing tax credit to cover brownfield site development.

“This is huge,” Pierre Gratton, CEO of the Mining Association of Canada, said in an interview. “It includes an awful lot of stuff that we’ve been advocating for for a while, and not getting.”

“I’m surprised, to be honest, because I didn’t expect it,” he added. The critical minerals tax credit in its current form can provide incentives for new development, but the more pressing opportunity is to expand existing operations, Gratton said.

“This could really help increase Canadian production of critical minerals in the short- to medium-term.”

Both the Liberals and Conservatives have promised to renew a broader mineral exploration tax credit that expired in March. It’s “extremely encouraging” that the two major parties have such a strong focus on getting projects through the system faster, though governments of both stripes have promised to speed up permitting before, Gratton said.

“There’s a certain degree of skepticism that I think the industry shares — but also optimism that there seems to be more determination than ever before,” he said. “The situation with the United States has obviously helped create the drive to really make sure we can start building.”

Though Carney grew up in the oil-rich province of Alberta, voters there overwhelmingly skew Conservative and tend to be skeptical of Liberal promises to support the energy sector. Poilievre has promised to unleash oil and gas investment through tax cuts, deregulation and the creation of a “national energy corridor” that would include pre-approvals from various levels of government for major projects.

Carney’s plan also includes developing a trade and energy corridor through a C$5 billion ($3.5 billion) fund to build infrastructure to reach export markets.

Climate advocates criticized the Liberal leader’s plan to expand oil and gas production, though Carney says he aims to reduce emissions through carbon capture and storage technology. Canada should focus on selling clean energy and steel to international markets, said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada.

“If we are going to be an energy superpower, then we better not be a supervillain by doubling down on fossil fuels,” Stewart said in an email. “We need to pick a lane if we want to succeed and while Trump may be pulling the US backward, Europe and Asia are racing to reduce their reliance on oil and gas.”

(By Laura Dhillon Kane and Thomas Seal)

The deal was signed last year and expected to close in mid-2025.

Production at Anglo American’s Moranbah North coal mine – located in the Bowen basin in Queensland, Australia – was suspended after an underground fire broke out at the mine last week.

Peabody said on Tuesday it was in conversation with Anglo American to better understand the impacts of the event and would preserve all rights and protections under its purchase agreements.

Anglo American said it was providing information to Peabody on the suspension at Moranbah North.

“At the mine, conditions remain stable as we progress with developing our staged re-entry management plan and risk assessment,” it said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

US-based coal producer Peabody said it had engaged in preliminary discussions with potential investors regarding permanent financing for the acquisition.

Peabody’s deal for Anglo American’s assets included an upfront payment of $2.05 billion at completion, deferred cash consideration of $725 million and another potential $550 million. It also included a contingent cash consideration of $450 million linked to the reopening of the Grosvenor mine, after another fire broke out there in June, ahead of the acquisition.

Anglo American’s Peabody deal was its first major divestment in a wider restructuring plan. The London-listed company, which last year fended off a $49 billion takeover bid from the world’s biggest miner BHP Group, has agreed to sell its nickel and coal assets and is in the process of divesting platinum and diamonds to focus on copper and iron ore.

(By Clara Denina and Vallari Srivastava; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Jane Merriman)

Trump directed federal agencies to lift Obama-era limits on coal mining, leasing, and exports. He instructed the Interior Department to locate coal deposits on federal lands, remove barriers to mining, and fast-track leasing processes.

“All those plants that have been closed are going to be opened if they’re modern enough, or they’ll be ripped down and brand new ones will be built,” Trump said, surrounded by coal miners in hard hats at the White House. “We’re going to put the miners back to work.”

Coal companies held just 279 federal leases across nearly 422,000 acres as of 2023, a sharp drop from 489 leases covering about 730,000 acres in 1990.

Trump also ordered his newly formed National Energy Dominance Council to classify coal as a critical mineral, equating it with materials essential for defence systems and battery production. The move builds on a previous executive order allowing emergency powers and funding to boost domestic supply chains for critical minerals and rare earths.

“Coal is the single most reliable, durable, secure and powerful form of energy,” Trump said Tuesday. “It’s cheap, incredibly efficient, high density, and it’s almost indestructible. You could drop a bomb on it, and it’s going to be there for you to use the next day, which you can’t say with any other form of energy.”

The Department of Energy and other agencies will now examine whether more coal-fired plants can be kept online or reactivated to meet rising electricity demand. Some aging coal plants previously set for retirement may stay in operation.

This surge in power demand stems from rapid growth in data centres, artificial intelligence and electric vehicles (EVs). Trump argues coal is essential to power these technologies and to support industries like steelmaking.

Despite Trump’s long-standing pledge to bring back what he calls “beautiful” coal, the sector has been in long-term decline. US coal production has fallen dramatically in recent years, outpaced by cheaper natural gas and increasingly affordable renewable energy.

EPA’s help

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is already working to ease pollution regulations on coal plants, including limits on mercury and carbon dioxide. It’s considering exemptions for certain facilities from air quality rules.

Environmental groups blasted the executive order, calling it a backward move at odds with market trends. Renewables now dominate new power generation: 93% of electricity added to the US grid this year will come from solar, wind, and batteries, according to government forecasts.

Coal accounts for only 15% of power generation in the US today, down from more than half in 2000, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

While Trump failed to revive coal during his first term, the landscape has shifted. Utilities now warn that retiring coal plants too quickly could strain the grid, especially as extreme weather events become more frequent due to climate change.

The executive order underscores Trump’s broader energy strategy: maximize domestic fossil fuel production to meet surging power demands and maintain grid reliability, regardless of environmental consequences.

(With files from Bloomberg, Reuters)

The new figures, published Tuesday in the biennial Red Book — a survey of the uranium industry — may trigger concern over the direction of Iran’s nuclear program. The Islamic Republic has been digging at more than a half dozen new uranium mines since 2022 yet its resources are considered uneconomic and well below what is needed to fuel a nuclear reactor.

Tehran’s government “indicates that Iran’s uranium reserves are much larger than previously estimated,” wrote the authors of the report, who work at the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency and Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. The country may almost quadruple ore production to 71 tons this year, according to the report.

Unlike other parts of the nuclear-fuel cycle — the sprawling industrial process that concentrates uranium isotopes into fuel for energy — upstream mining activities are not frequently audited. IAEA inspectors track enriched uranium worldwide at gram levels because the material can also be used in weapons, but uranium ore can be mined and traded with fewer regulations.

While Iran has always maintained its nuclear program is peaceful, in 2015 world powers negotiated caps on its work in exchange for sanctions relief. US President Donald Trump left that agreement — which included IAEA safeguards on Iranian mining activities — in May 2018 and reimposed stringent penalties on Iran’s economy.

Since returning to office, Trump has said he wants a new nuclear agreement with Iran and has raised the threat of military action if Tehran doesn’t join direct talks to strike an accord soon.

After months of tensions, Tehran said it would hold talks with the US on Saturday in Muscat, Oman. Negotiations will be led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and mediated by Oman’s foreign minister, according to Iran’s state-run Nour News.

Iran’s uranium mining activities have drawn scrutiny from security analysts who point out that, while its reserves aren’t enough to fuel its lone atomic-power reactor, they would be sufficient to build nuclear bombs.

The reactor at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear-power plant needs the equivalent of about 160 tons (145.15 tons) of uranium ore annually, but the country has been mining just 21 tons a year. Russia’s Rosatom Corp., which built the plant, also supplies the fuel.

“Despite having already acquired sufficient uranium to supply a sizable nuclear weapons arsenal, Iran’s domestic uranium resources do not match its nuclear power reactor goals, meaning it cannot have an economically viable, domestic source of uranium,” wrote the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security in a report last year.

Iran’s engineers are now producing the equivalent of one bomb’s worth of 60%-enriched uranium per month, according to IAEA data. In February, an IAEA report noted that the country’s stockpile of this highly-enriched uranium had increased by 50% over the preceding three months, to 275 kilograms.

(By Jonathan Tirone)

The result was in line with preliminary data reported by the company in early March.

JSW is the European Union’s largest producer of coking coal, which is essential for steel production.

Coking coal is on the EU’s list of critical raw materials because steel is vital for building renewable energy and other infrastructure. The bloc aims to ensure secure and sustainable supply of materials on the list.

In 2024, JSW was hit by falling coking coal prices, weak demand due to lower steel production, and increased competition from non-European suppliers such as China and Indonesia.

The company proposed not paying a dividend for 2024. It stopped paying dividends in 2018.

JSW’s sales revenue dropped to 11.33 billion zlotys last year from 15.34 billion zlotys in 2023, primarily due to lower coal prices and reduced demand.

It reported a loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 6.50 billion zlotys for the year, compared with earnings on the same basis of 4.56 billion zlotys in 2023.

($1 = 3.9126 zlotys)

(By Rafal W. Nowak; Editing by Mark Potter)

In a press release Tuesday, the Australian miner said it would now take a phased development approach to the project instead of a full-scale project development, beginning with early works infrastructure development and detailed engineering to ensure the project is “shovel ready”.

However, construction of the processing plant, which involves the majority of estimated capital expenditure, will be postponed, it added.

The company reiterated that the key element to delivering an FID “was always going to be the prevailing uranium market conditions” that would justify the development of what it considers to be one of the most advanced greenfield uranium projects globally.

Despite the delayed FID, the company’s shares closed Tuesday’s session 4.9% higher with a market capitalization of A$826.7 million. The stock bounced off a 52-week low on Monday after recovering from last week’s global-wide market selloff.

“We have a situation where the long-term uranium market is essentially broken. This is due to more than a decade of sector inactivity, persistently depressed uranium prices, and utility offtake contracting practices which are yet to support the development of greenfields uranium production,” managing director John Borshoff said in a news release.

“Although the Tumas project is economic at current long-term uranium prices, these prices do not reflect or support the enormous amount of production that needs to be brought online to meet expected demand,” Borshoff added.

Deep Yellow has been working on the Tumas project since 2016, and has to date delineated a resource totalling 118 million lb. of uranium oxide (U₃O₈) at a grade of 255 parts per million U₃O₈. Within the resource is an estimated ore reserve of 79 million lb. grading 298 ppm U₃O₈. The reserves are expected to support a long mine life of at least 22 years, with annual uranium production of 3.6 million lb.

According to the company, the additional detailed engineering carried out in the past three months has confirmed Tumas as a robust, long-life project of over 20 years. Its post-tax net present value has been pegged at $577 million, with an internal rate of return of 19%. The initial capex is estimated at $474 million.

The latest optimization work by the company was based off a uranium price of $82.50/lb., while uranium futures are currently trading at around $64/lb.

The test facility, to be constructed at Voestalpine’s Linz site, will have a capacity of three tons of metal per hour, will utilize hydrogen instead of coal to process iron ore, potentially eliminating carbon emissions from the steelmaking process.

Rio Tinto will contribute technical expertise regarding iron ore quality while supplying 70% of the raw material from its global operations for the prototype plant and will aid in accelerating the technology’s market readiness.

The technology permits iron ore to be used directly without first forming it into pellets, which could reduce costs and energy consumption.

The project, also supported by Mitsubishi Corporation, is set to begin operations in mid-2027 and has secured funding from the Austrian government and European Union programs, according to the statement.

(By Roushni Nair; Editing by Tasim Zahid)

The agencies’ biennial Red Book says demand for uranium is surging as countries and companies turn to nuclear power to reduce fossil fuel use and support the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI)-related power-hungry data centres. Without major new investment in uranium exploration and mining, supply may not keep up.

While the report concludes that enough uranium exists to support a “high-growth” scenario through 2050 and beyond, it stresses that unlocking those resources will require significant spending on exploration, mining operations, and new processing techniques.

Under that high-growth outlook, global nuclear capacity would rise 130% by 2050 compared to 2022 levels. However, that estimate is based on policies and data available at the start of 2023 — before a wave of renewed interest in nuclear energy by both governments and the private sector.

East Asia is expected to see the largest growth, with capacity potentially increasing by up to 220% over the 111 gigawatts of nuclear power it had at the end of 2022. Meanwhile, countries including the US, UK, South Korea and 20 others have pledged to triple global nuclear capacity by mid-century to help meet net-zero targets.

Iran concerns

From the region, Iran is by far the country with the most capacity to increase uranium output, the report shows. The nation could up its ore production by almost four times, reaching 71 tonnes this year, according to the report.

In addition to the current Ardakan uranium production facility in Yazd Province, feasibility studies are underway for the development of the Narigan production centre, also located in the same province.

Iran has always maintained that its uranium enrichment activities are for peaceful purposes. Last year, however, the US-based Institute for Science and International Security said that while Iran’s uranium resources could support a nuclear weapons arsenal, they are insufficient to fuel its growing nuclear power reactors.

Private sector investment is also climbing. Tech giants including Google, Amazon and Meta are betting on nuclear, investing heavily in the sector to power the next generation of energy-intensive data centres fuelling AI development.

The International Energy Agency said in January that nuclear power has entered “a new era,” with interest at its highest level since the 1970s oil shocks. 

The agency noted that annual nuclear investment rose nearly 50% between 2020 and 2023.

In an executive order Trump is set to sign Tuesday afternoon, the president will direct a number of steps by the federal government meant to reinvigorate coal, said a senior White House official. The actions including emphasizing the US is back in the business of selling coal mining rights on federal land and ordering the rock be designated as a critical mineral. Other steps include accelerating the export of US coal and related technologies.

Yet it’s unclear whether the new initiative will be enough to dramatically shift the domestic landscape for coal, which has declined in the face of competition from low-cost natural gas and renewable power, as well as environmental regulations and climate change concerns. It’s also not certain technology companies that have embraced emission-free nuclear and renewable energy will be eager to power their data centers with coal.

Nevertheless, the executive order underscores Trump’s commitment to tapping America’s coal resources as a source of both electricity to run data centers and heat to forge steel. The president and top administration officials have made clear boosting coal-fired power is a top priority, one they see as intertwined with national security and the US standing in a global competition to dominate the artificial intelligence industry.

The US is “way ahead right now in the AI race with China,” Trump told reporters Monday during an event in the Oval Office. But, Trump added, the provision of electric power for data centers is critical to maintaining that advantage.

Trump vowed to revive coal while campaigning for president last year, following through on a political priority he also embraced his first term in the White House. The order comes as his administration weighs other steps to boost the fossil fuel, including tapping emergency authority to reopen shuttered coal-fired plants that have closed while preventing others from closing.

Trump is slated to sign the executive order during a 3 p.m. event in the East Room of the White House, with attendees set to include executives from some of the US’s biggest mining companies, including Peabody Energy, Core Natural Resources and Ramaco Resources.

Trump has complained previous administrations waged war on coal, stifling its potential with environmental regulations on power plants as well as curbs on mining. In his order Tuesday, Trump will take aim at one high-profile barrier, by directing the Interior Department to acknowledge the end of on-again, off-again leasing moratorium first initiated under former President Barack Obama. Trump will also direct government agencies to identify coal resources on federal lands and prioritize leasing there while lifting barriers to mining those deposits, the senior White House official said.

The shift could encourage coal companies to expand existing their holdings on federal land, which have declined over the past three decades. Coal companies held just 279 federal leases spanning nearly 422,000 acres as of 2023, according to Interior Department data, down from 489 leases covering roughly 730,000 acres just 33 years earlier.

Trump is also directing his new National Energy Dominance Council to designate coal as a critical mineral, putting it on par with those needed for defense systems and batteries. An executive order signed by the president last month set the stage for such a move, authorizing the use of emergency powers and funding to help boost domestic production and processing of critical minerals and rare earths.

Similarly, Trump will task Energy Secretary Chris Wright with determining whether coal used in steel production should win coveted ‘critical’ status under federal law.

In his order, the president will require agencies to rescind policies that seek to transition the nation away from coal production or otherwise establish preferences against using the fossil fuel as a source of electricity. The electric sector is the second-largest source of greenhouse gases in the US, behind transportation, and coal produces twice as much as its nearest rival, natural gas, when burned to generate electricity.

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is already moving to revise a suite of regulations governing coal-fired power plants, including limits on mercury pollution as well as carbon dioxide. The EPA is also weighing exempting some power plants from specific air pollution controls.

Coal accounts for about 15% of power generation in the US today, down from more than half in 2000, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Since 2000, about 770 individual coal-fired units have shuttered, according to data from Global Energy Monitor, with more set to close.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who heads Trump’s energy dominance council, has cast coal-fired power as affordable and reliable, saying that makes it key to meeting demand from data centers, new factories and increased electrification in transportation and heating. NextEnergy has predicted US power demand will grow 55% over the next 20 years.

Renewable power advocates have argued that Trump’s bid for US energy dominance demands a wider array of options, especially given challenges securing critical components needed to produce electricity from coal and natural gas. Northeast US states and grid managers in particular have been counting on supplies from offshore wind farms to help meet demand.

Trump, who last week ordered sweeping tariffs on US trading partners and is urging European allies to buy more American energy, sees coal as a valuable export too. Tuesday’s order will direct US authorities to promote the foreign sale of US coal as well as coal-related technology, including by pushing other countries to sign purchase agreements.

(By Ari Natter and Jennifer A. Dlouhy)