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

The Trump administration last month had named an initial 10 projects to the list and said that more would be added in the future.

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

The latest 10 include a proposed copper and nickel mine in Minnesota from a joint venture of Glencore and Teck Resources; a New Mexico uranium project from Energy Fuels; expansion of a Montana palladium project from Sibanye Stillwater; an Alaskan silver project from Hecla; and a Georgia titanium dioxide project from Chemours.

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.

President Donald Trump also last month 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 Marguerita Choy)

Launched in late 2023 by the US Department of Defense, the Open Price Exploration for National Security AI metals program is an attempt to counter China’s sweeping control of the critical minerals sector, as Reuters reported last year.

Now, more than 30 mining companies, manufacturers and investors – including auto giant Volkswagen – have joined the Critical Minerals Forum non-profit and will be its first users, according to Rob Strayer, a former US diplomat and the organization’s president.

“Everyone in the critical minerals sector is looking for more price transparency,” said Seth Goldstein, a lithium industry analyst with Morningstar. “Any tool like the CMF that could help would be welcome.”

Other members include copper miner South32, rare earths producer MP Materials and defense contractor RTX. The CMF held its first meeting with members in November. The privatization and CMF’s membership have not previously been reported.

Armed with the AI model, the CMF aims to help manufacturers curb their reliance on China by signing more metal supply deals with Western mines, according to more than two dozen industry consultants, purchasing agents, analysts, regulators and investors who told Reuters the program reflects one of the boldest efforts to date to transform the ways certain metals are bought and sold.

The goal is for the AI model to calculate what a metal should cost when labor, processing and other costs are factored in – and Chinese market manipulation is factored out – and thus give buyer and seller confidence in a deal’s economics.

Some deals with the CMF are beginning to take shape. Nevada officials this week said they would work with the CMF and its AI model to help attract copper smelting to the state. The US has only two copper smelters and as such imports nearly half of its demand for the red metal.

The program has already faced skepticism over whether it can achieve the goal of transforming the long-established ways metals are bought and sold.

Yet it is aimed less at heavily traded metals – such as aluminum – and toward lightly traded metals or metals that see heavy overproduction from some in an attempt to sway market pricing.

For example, the CMF model could help manufacturers forecast available nickel supplies in 2028 if the US were to impose a 100% tariff on that metal from Indonesia, the top global producer.

That data that could help a manufacturer determine whether to invest in a US nickel mine or agree to buy its future production, a step that would help obtain financing for a mine’s construction.

In such a scenario, the nickel buyer would use the AI model’s data to negotiate a long-term deal for guaranteed supply, regardless of whether Chinese miners boost production and drive down market prices, as they have done in recent years.

The CMF’s aim with the AI model does assume that a buyer would be comfortable paying more than the market price for a metal if supply were guaranteed.

China squeeze

The CMF’s entrance into the complex metals markets comes as Beijing restricts critical minerals exports, the very kind of market interference that the CMF officials said underscores the need to build more US mines and processing facilities to power the energy transition.

Prices on the London Metal Exchange and other futures exchanges for nickel, cobalt and some other battery metals have been dominated in recent years by overproduction from Chinese miners operating at a loss in Indonesia and Congo to boost market share.

Many niche-but-essential battery minerals on which Beijing has imposed export controls are not traded or lightly traded, including rare earths – a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion – as well as germanium and gallium.

In response to a request for comment about the CMF, the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, said that China manages its exports of rare earths in accordance with rules from the World Trade Organization.

“China will continue to work with other countries to jointly undertake the responsibility of global rare earths supply,” said embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu.

Volkswagen and some other CMF members said they see the CMF as helping boost visibility into what can be an opaque critical minerals supply chain. MP Materials and RTX did not respond to requests for comment.

US President Donald Trump has already ordered his administration to work with private developers to boost US crucial minerals production, a step that could be aided by the data CMF aims to provide markets, program officials said. The president has also launched a study into potential tariffs on all US minerals imports.

Drawing on its government connections, the CMF aims to connect mining projects with potential investors and manufacturers needing more-secure metals supply, said Strayer.

Massachusetts-based rare earths processing startup Phoenix Tailings hopes the CMF can help create US-based prices for minerals tied to actual production costs, said CEO Nick Myers.

Phoenix aims to use data from the CMF as negotiating leverage with potential customers, including manufacturers that are themselves CMF members, Myers said. “In a sector that is opaque, it is one of the tools to get more information,” Myers said.

Not all market observers are convinced that the CMF’s AI model is revolutionary.

“I’ve tried to politely say I think this is worthless,” said Ian Lange, who teaches mining economics at the Colorado School of Mines. Lange contrasted the goals of the Pentagon’s AI model with the much-larger and more-complex global oil market.

“Can we predict the price of oil better now than five years ago? The answer is no. Machine learning doesn’t help,” Lange said.

‘Encourage more visibility’

The Pentagon’s AI model is being trained using more than 70 mining-related data sets and aims to guide investment decisions out for at least 15 years based on how unexpected market shocks – export restrictions, for example – could affect the production or price of a metal.

FactSet, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and other pricing providers are supplying data, as is the US Commerce Department, officials said.

It is access to analysis of that data – some of which is not public – that the CMF says it believes sets the Pentagon’s AI program apart from ChatGPT or other AI programs.

And that data is the CMF’s biggest cost, part of the reason why the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will fund it for the next few years while the CMF determines whether to charge all members or create a tiered structure with basic members getting free access and others paying for more granular data, officials said.

S&P Global, AI developer Charles River Analytics, and software firm Exiger with price reporting agency partner Metal Miner have developed the model, according to the Pentagon.

S&P Global declined to comment. Charles River Analytics did not respond to a request for comment. Exiger said it believes its data can help forecast a material’s cost and availability and boost supply chain visibility.

The CMF has been organized as a nonprofit trade association with a board of directors comprised of its members. Its staffing is small – fewer than 10 employees – and its annual budget is not disclosed.

DARPA does not have a representative on the CMF board, but is funding the program through at least 2029 and plans to transfer the AI model’s intellectual property to the CMF by the beginning of 2027, officials said.

There are no plans to make the CMF a for-profit entity, although there may be charges in the future for access to more detailed data sets, officials said.

The CMF is launching a campaign to attract more members – especially from the semiconductor, aviation and defense industries – and offering free membership for the next 14 months while the Pentagon funds data collection, Strayer said.

Foreign governments are also studying whether to join the CMF and use its data, including copper-rich Zambia and cobalt-rich Democratic Republic of Congo, CMF officials said, adding they aim to make the program international in scope to boost metals market transparency.

The Zambian and DRC embassies in Washington, DC, did not respond to requests for comment.

As Western miners begin to demand green premiums for their metals, those new agreements increasingly require the very market intelligence the CMF model aims to provide.

“Any mechanism that can give you better modeling of markets is obviously enormously valuable,” said Brian Menell, CEO of TechMet, a mining investor and CMF member.

The AI model introduces another variable for the LME to contend with, especially as the exchange is struggling as rivals in Chicago and Shanghai try to take market share for some niche battery metals.

The LME declined to comment.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Veronica Brown and Claudia Parsons)

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)

Trump may be unlikely to gain dominion over Canada or Greenland, but he’s vying to supersede the UN treaty that governs nations’ use of the ocean, potentially with far-reaching consequences for untouched and biodiverse deep sea ecosystems targeted for exploitation.

“‘The next gold rush’: President Trump unlocks access to critical deep seabed minerals,” the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proclaimed in a press release on Friday.

Just days after Trump issued an executive order expediting the processing of seabed mining applications, The Metals Company (TMC) on Tuesday applied for a US license to extract minerals from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an immense region of the Pacific that stretches from Hawaii to Mexico. 

There’s a hitch, though. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone and the rest of the ocean floor in international waters falls under jurisdiction of the International Seabed Authority, whose 169 member nations plus the European Union are loath to give up their mandate to regulate deep sea mining for the benefit of humanity while ensuring the effective protection of the marine environment. 

ISA Secretary-General Leticia Carvalho on Wednesday warned that unilateral action by the US “sets a dangerous precedent that could destabilize the entire system of global ocean governance.”

At stake is not just who gets to exploit polymetallic nodules — potato-sized rocks rich in cobalt, nickel and other metals that carpet the Clarion-Clipperton seabed — or the fate of  the otherworldly deep sea life that lives on them, but the future of a treaty that has kept commercial peace on the world’s oceans for more than 30 years.

Here’s what else to know.

Who is in charge of deep-sea mining in international waters?

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea established the ISA to regulate deep sea mining beyond national jurisdiction, with royalties on any mining to be distributed among member states. The organization, which is headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica, has spent more than a decade negotiating mining regulations with an end currently not in sight.

For more than 30 years, the ISA has forestalled a deep-sea gold rush as nations respected its mandate to first develop regulations to minimize harm from mining to unique marine life that evolved over eons in the frigid darkness of the abyss. Then TMC grew weary of waiting, saying it spent half a billion dollars on environmental assessments required to prepare an ISA mining license application.

What is The Metals Company?

TMC is a public company registered in Canada and run by Gerard Barron, an Australian former internet advertising entrepreneur. It holds two of 31 ISA exploration licenses. As ISA negotiations dragged on, company executives lobbied Trump White House officials to issue seabed mining licenses. A polymetallic nodule “was presented to the president last week and now sits on the Resolute Desk” in the Oval Office, Barron said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday. The company’s US subsidiary has applied for the US seabed mining licenses.

What is the US authority to issue mining licenses in international waters?

It’s complicated. While the Law of the Sea treaty was being negotiated, the US enacted the 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resources Act to allow it to grant mining licenses in international waters. The idea at the time was that the law would serve as a placeholder — “an interim legal regime,” in the words of the legislation, until the treaty came into force so that companies would be encouraged to develop deep sea mining technology.

But when the Law of the Sea treaty became what is called “the constitution of the ocean” 14 years later, the US Congress declined to ratify it. Though the US isn’t a member of the ISA, it participates in the organization’s proceedings as an observer and has generally abided by  the treaty’s provisions. (The ISA reserved a permanent seat on its policymaking body for the country in case it eventually ratifies the treaty.) With his executive order, Trump reversed the US government’s longstanding position, upending multilateral deliberations about deep-sea mining. TMC is the first company to apply for a mining license under the 45-year-old US seabed mining law.

Doesn’t TMC already hold ISA exploration licenses?

Yes, and what’s fueling outrage among the diplomatic corps is that TMC wants US permission to mine an area it licensed from the ISA under the sponsorship of Nauru, a tiny and impoverished Pacific island nation to whom the company has agreed to pay royalties under its ISA contract. TMC declined to comment on whether those obligations to Nauru remain if it is issued a US mining license. Even as it seeks a US license, the company still plans to apply for an ISA mining contract in June, despite the absence of mining regulations.

How has the ISA responded to Trump and TMC?

Member nations are divided over whether deep sea mining should proceed but agree that the ISA is the sole authority empowered to make such decisions. “Circumventing the regulatory authority of ISA not only breaches international law, but also erodes trust, exacerbates global inequality and silences the voices of least developed countries,” the ISA said in a statement released after Trump signed the executive order.

What happens next?

TMC said it expects the initial US review of its mining application to be completed within 60 days. Matt Giacona, the acting principal deputy director of the US Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said that other deep-sea mining application reviews, such as for exploration licenses, will move faster. “These new permitting procedures will reduce a multi-year process down to just 28 days upon request by project applicants,” he said at a press briefing last week.

That timeline worries deep-sea biologist Diva Amon. “It will likely prevent robust assessment of whether environmental obligations will be fulfilled,” said Amon, a science advisor to the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “Currently we know little about the animals inhabiting the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, including their ecology and how they will cope with the potential impacts of deep-sea mining.”

TMC has previously said it expected to begin commercial mining in 2026 if it obtained an ISA license. While the company tested a small-scale prototype of a nodule mining machine in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in 2022, it will need to secure a full-size commercial version capable of operating continuously under crushing pressure and ice-cold conditions.

Where would nodules be processed?

The US has no current capacity to process and refine the minerals contained in nodules into metals suitable for making electric car batteries and other products. A Japanese company has conducted processing trials for TMC but building industrial-scale operations for nodules could require billions of dollars in investment. “Polymetallic nodules are a unique resource, and there is no proven processing technology that can recover all four saleable elements contained in them,” stated an April RAND report on seabed mining.

(By Todd Woody)

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)

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)

Industry sources said the turnaround came after members told the LME that the plan would be expensive for them and that other exchanges such as COMEX do not have this requirement.

The exchange’s plans to oblige members to transact private deals, known as over-the-counter (OTC) trades, on its electronic trading system Select were intially mooted in a white paper last year.

There will be a consultation period until June 13 on the revised plans, which include hedging LME contracts on Select.

The LME will progress with the original proposal if market monitoring indicates that on-exchange controls are encouraging more trading to take place OTC.

“Given this, the LME intends to increase the fee for OTC (trades) to be twice that of exchange business,” the exchange said in a release on Wednesday.

Fees for using LME prices in OTC contracts are $2.36 per lot. For copper where one lot is 25 metric tons, that would amount to nearly 10 US cents a ton.

Since the paper was published the LME, owned by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, has talked to its members and the wider metals market about its plans to boost transparency and liquidity.

“We have listened carefully to these views and they have enabled us to refine different elements to better meet the needs of different sections of the market,” said LME chief executive Matthew Chamberlain.

Earlier this year Reuters reported that the Futures Industry Association (FIA) and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) sent a joint letter to the LME laying out members’ concerns about these proposals.

The LME, the world’s largest and oldest forum for trading metals, has also tried to address members’ concerns about hedging LME contracts or block trades of up to 10 lots for the most liquid contracts, which include the three-month benchmarks.

“The feedback received suggested that there should be differentiation across different metals,” it said.

The LME has analyzed factors such as bid/ask spreads, size of the book, average trade size and notional size. It is proposing 15 lots or 375 tons for aluminum, 10 lots or 250 tons for copper, zinc and lead and 5 lots or 30 tons for nickel.

The plans also include expanding the definition of lower-cost short-dated carry trades to 60 days from 15 days, so long as the contracts to buy and sell are within 15 days of each other.

This will cut costs for physical market buyers and sellers who may want to switch delivery dates.

(By Pratima Desai and Eric Onstad; Editing by Jan Harvey and Freya Whitworth)

Chief executive Gustavo Pimenta told reporters in Rio de Janeiro the market is oversupplied due to output from Indonesia. “Nickel remains attractive in the medium and long-term,” he said, citing demand for electric cars production.

“The question is how to remain profitable in the short term,” the executive added.

The CEO noted Vale must work to improve efficiency of its assets, and cut costs to have a profitable nickel business within current market prices.

“We are evaluating if some assets in the portfolio could have a strategic alternative,” Pimenta added.

In January, Vale said its subsidiary Vale Base Metals had started a “strategic review” of its nickel assets in Thompson, Canada, including their potential sale.

Pimenta also said on Tuesday that Vale has started to reverse in April the iron ore production decline it reported in the first quarter of the year, adding he is “very confident” that the miner will meet its 2025 production guidance for the steel-making ingredient.

The executive noted the company could again be the world’s largest iron ore producer if rivals such as Rio Tinto miss their output estimates for the year.

(By Rodrigo Viga Gaier, Gabriel Araujo and Andre Romani; Editing by Chris Reese and Aida Pelaez-Fernandez)

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.

Fast-tracking approvals

Carney’s administration plans to establish a “Major Federal Project Office” with a “one project, one review” mandate. This initiative aims to streamline environmental assessments by eliminating duplication between federal and provincial processes, thereby accelerating the approval of mining projects. Such a move is poised to benefit companies involved in critical mineral extraction, including lithium, nickel, and cobalt, by reducing bureaucratic delays.

Carney has not provided clarity on how the consent process would be expedited to meet the timeline pressures of energy and infrastructure development. This ambiguity is notable, particularly as his promise to avoid forcing projects through appears to contradict his assurances that major projects will proceed swiftly. Past provincial experiences, such as B.C.’s attempts to expedite development under similar consent commitments, suggest that balancing these priorities is fraught with legal and political difficulty.

Carney’s approach implies an acknowledgment of a de facto Indigenous veto over resource projects—but rather than confronting this head-on, he proposes to “buy in” Indigenous participation through public financing mechanisms. This creates a practical route around a hard veto by offering Indigenous communities ownership stakes that align their interests with project success.

Reconciling the urgency of certain projects with the potentially time-consuming process of obtaining consent from multiple Indigenous nations will prove tricky. It begs the question of whether or not this model serves the public interest.

On one hand, it represents a constructive shift from conflict to partnership, promoting reconciliation and potentially leading to more stable and inclusive development. It avoids the legal and ethical risks associated with imposing projects on unwilling nations. On the other hand, it raises questions about the use of taxpayer-backed funds as a means of securing project approval. There is a risk that such financing becomes a permanent cost of doing business, even for projects that may not deliver strong returns to the public.

Whether this is sustainable or fair depends on how transparent and equitable the resulting arrangements are — and whether public funds are being used to create true partnerships or merely to neutralize opposition.

Investment in critical minerals

The Carney-led government plans to invest in the development of critical minerals by: 

• Connecting critical mineral projects to supply chains via the new First and Last Mile Fund (FLMF), enhancing integration within the Canadian economy;
• Supporting clean energy and critical minerals projects through the FLMF to reduce reliance on other countries and protect Canadian jobs;
• Accelerating exploration and extraction, including from recycling, by investing in prospecting activities and 
• Attracting and de-risking investment in critical mineral exploration and extraction through additional investments and expanded tax credits. 

US tariffs

In response to US President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canadian imports, Carney has pledged a firm stance. His administration plans to invest billions to reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the southern neighbour, including a $2 billion strategic response fund to protect Canadian workers and fortify the auto supply chain.

This shift towards trade diversification and economic resilience is likely to open new markets for Canadian mining exports, particularly in Asia and Europe, thereby reducing vulnerability to US trade policies.

Energy superpower

Mark Carney’s campaign message on energy, echoing Stephen Harper’s “energy superpower” mantra, signals a sweeping ambition — but with a broader, more climate-conscious twist. In his election night speech, Carney declared it was “time to build Canada into an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy” and pushed for an industrial strategy that boosts competitiveness while addressing climate change.

Now leading a Liberal government, Carney faces the challenge of balancing economic growth with environmental responsibility. His platform includes plans for national “energy corridors” designed to fast-track approvals for infrastructure such as pipelines and transmission lines. He has also pledged to streamline regulatory processes to reduce delays that have long hindered energy and resource development.

Carney supports carbon capture and storage technology, a key strategy for the oil and gas sector to reduce emissions. His promise of federal backing extends to major infrastructure and extraction efforts, notably the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario. The region is rich in critical minerals essential for electric vehicles, batteries and other technologies vital to a low-carbon economy.

Some First Nations groups with claims in the area oppose development, which could take a decade to implement judging by other projects. Environmentalists say it will release the same global warming gases from the region’s muskeg that the electric-battery vehicle metals it would produce are supposed to limit.

Canada’s elected Prime Minister has also committed to advancing transportation and energy projects in the Arctic, paired with a planned expansion of the country’s military presence in the region.

Environmental commitments

While promoting mining development, Carney’s administration also maintains environmental commitments, such as upholding the industrial carbon tax and imposing caps on oil and gas emissions. This approach aims to ensure that mining growth aligns with Canada’s climate goals. 

Despite facing challenges such as taxation, immigration and political influences, including Trump’s rhetoric, Canada’s natural resource development was a common topic brought up by the two main political parties.

Carney’s recent victory signals a proactive approach to strengthening Canada’s mining industry, a significant contributor to the country’s economy. The sector accounted for nearly 20% of the country’s gross domestic product in 2022, alongside C$422 billion ($305 billion) in exports.

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.”

Signed in private, the order aims to accelerate the mining of critical minerals in both US and international waters, part of a broader strategy to counter China’s dominance in the global supply of these resources.

“The US authorization… violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said, the BBC reported.

The move has stirred international criticism, especially over its provision to allow seabed exploration beyond US jurisdiction. Deep-sea mining has increasingly come into focus as countries seek access to valuable metals like nickel, manganese, and cobalt — key components in batteries for electric vehicles and smartphones.

Estimates suggest the ocean floor holds between $8 trillion and $16 trillion worth of these metals. In US waters alone, more than a billion metric tons of mineral-rich nodules could be extracted, potentially adding $300 billion to its GDP over a decade and creating 100,000 jobs, according to administration officials.

“The United States has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources,” Trump stated in the order.

The directive calls for fast-tracking permits under the 1980 Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act and sets up a permitting process along the US Outer Continental Shelf. It also pushes for quicker review of applications to mine in international waters — a move expected to trigger push back from the global community.

“We want the US to get ahead of China in this resource space under the ocean, on the ocean bottom,” a US official told the BBC.

Environmental groups remain critical of seabed mining, warning it could irreparably damage fragile marine ecosystems that are still poorly understood and already stressed by pollution, industrial trawling and climate change.

In a recent interview, Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company (TMC), told MINING.COM that the US government’s renewed emphasis on domestic mineral production is well-timed.

“Mineral security is really important for critical minerals, and many in the new administration have been tremendous supporters,” Barron said. “So we’re going into 2025 thinking this will be a breakout year.”

TMC, which is partnered with the Republic of Nauru, plans to submit its first application to begin mining operations on June 27, just ahead of the International Seabed Authority’s next meeting in July.

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.

The order, which Trump signed in private, seeks to jumpstart the mining of both US and international waters as part of a push to offset China’s sweeping control of the critical minerals industry.

Reuters first reported last month that the order was under deliberation.

Parts of the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere are estimated to contain large amounts of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules filled with the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics.

More than 1 billion metric tons of those nodules are estimated to be in US waters and filled with manganese, nickel, copper and other critical minerals, according to an administration official.

Extracting them could boost US GDP by $300 billion over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs, the official added.

“The United States has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources,” Trump said in the order.

The order directs the administration to expedite mining permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resource Act of 1980 and to establish a process for issuing permits along the US Outer Continental Shelf.

It also orders the expedited review of seabed mining permits “in areas beyond the national jurisdiction,” a move likely to spark friction with the international community.

The International Seabed Authority – created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the US has not ratified – has for years been considering standards for deep-sea mining in international waters, although it has yet to formalize them due to unresolved differences over acceptable levels of dust, noise and other factors from the practice.

Supporters of deep-sea mining say it would lessen the need for large mining operations on land, which are often unpopular with host communities. Environmental groups are calling for all activities to be banned, warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause irreversible biodiversity loss.

“The deep ocean belongs to everyone and protecting it is humanity’s global duty. The sea floor environment is not a platform for ‘America First’ extraction,” said Emily Jeffers of the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group that opposes the practice.

Any country can allow deep-sea mining in its own territorial waters, roughly up to 200 nautical miles from shore, and companies are already lining up to mine US waters.

Impossible Metals earlier this month asked the administration to launch a commercial auction for access to deposits of nickel, cobalt and other critical minerals off the coast of American Samoa.

Shares of The Metals Company – among the most prominent of deep-sea mining companies – rose on Thursday by roughly 40% to hit a 52-week high of $3.39 per share after the Reuters report earlier in the day on the executive order.

“With a stable, transparent, and enforceable regulatory pathway available under existing US law, we look forward to delivering the world’s first commercial nodule project, responsibly and economically,” said Gerard Barron, CEO of the company, which aims to extract nodules from a vast plain of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

Beyond The Metals Company, others eyeing deep-sea mining include California-based Impossible Metals, Russia’s JSC Yuzhmorgeologiya, Blue Minerals Jamaica, China Minmetals, and Kiribati’s Marawa Research and Exploration.

Other mining steps

US access to critical minerals – especially those produced by Chinese companies – has dwindled in recent months as Beijing has limited exports of several types. That, in turn, has ratcheted up pressure on Washington to support efforts to boost domestic mining.

Last week, Trump officials fast-tracked permitting on 10 mining projects across the United States and implemented an abbreviated approval process for mining projects on federal lands.

The administration also said it would approve one of the country’s largest copper mines.

Trump’s Thursday order uses the term “rare earths” to broadly refer to all critical minerals and is not meant to imply the administration believes the nodules contain neodymium and the 16 other rare earths, the administration official said.

(By Jarrett Renshaw and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Daniel Wallis)

A surge in supply from the Congo, responsible for 80% of the world’s cobalt output, coupled with tepid demand from the electric vehicle market, saw cobalt sulphate entering the EV battery supply chain in China fall to an average of just $3,556 per tonne in January.  That compares to a peak of nearly $19,000 a tonne in 2022.

Copper production in the DRC, with a big chunk owned by Chinese companies, was rising fast – leading to a near 40% jump in the country’s co-product cobalt output in 2024, but in February the country announced a four month ban on exports to ease the glut. 

Cobalt sulphate prices duly responded, jumping more than 60% in March to average $5,767 a tonne, and holding onto most of those gains in April.   

Cobalt byproduct output is also increasing in Indonesia as its nickel shipments ballooned and the DRC is now in talks with the Asian nation to collaborate on managing supply of cobalt including the use of quotas. 

Cobalt consumption in EV batteries overtook other sources of demand like aerospace several years ago and the impact of the DRC strategy has been swift.  

The latest data from Adamas Intelligence tracking EV battery metal deployment in over 120 countries paired with monthly prices shows the cobalt market springing back into life. 

The estimated size of the battery cobalt market shot up in March to an overall $152.4 million, up 120% over February and the highest since December 2022, lifting the value of sales weighted average cobalt contained in tandem. 

While March was a good month across the board for the EV industry and by extension battery metal deployment, and January and February are generally quiet months for passenger vehicle sales, cobalt vastly outperformed other battery metals. 

Nickel rose by a more subdued 41%, also amid rising prices, while the value of battery lithium deployment increased by 28% month over month, relying on rising EV sales in Asia more than prices, which are still bobbing along near the bottom of the cycle.  

And while price can make all the difference for suppliers to the EV battery market, longer term trends for cobalt (and its ternary cathode cousins) in the EV market are less encouraging. 

Lithium iron phosphate or LFP batteries continue to rapidly take market share from NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese) and NCA (nickel-cobalt-aluminum) cathode chemistries. 

The China-fueled rise of LFP has fostered a large divergence in global consumption growth rates of key battery metals, according to Adamas Intelligence data.

For example, in calendar 2024 iron and phosphorous deployment were up by 54% and 49%, respectively, for a combined 399.1 kilotonnes contained in the batteries of sold EVs over the course of the year.

In contrast, global nickel deployment into EV batteries increased 11% to 322.7 kt while that of manganese rose 10% to 73.6 kt and cobalt 7% to 59.6 kt as the industry continues to thrift the metal.  Keeping in mind that the installed tonnage does not take into account any losses during processing, chemical conversion or battery production scrap (often well into double digit percentages) so required tonnes are meaningfully higher at the mine mouth. 

In total, installed tonnage of nickel, cobalt and manganese last year represented 21% of the battery metal basket.  

That’s down from a 24% share in 2023 and 36% in 2020 when top EV maker BYD shifted to an all-LFP line-up, and LFP-powered Tesla Model 3s re-ignited uptake of the Ni-Co-Mn-free battery chemistry. 

The world’s largest EV battery maker CATL, responsible for 30% of total battery capacity deployed globally in GWh terms, in April announced that commercial production of sodium-ion packs will begin before the end of 2025. Due to its inherent limitations, sodium-ion is more likely to eat into LFP’s market than NCM’s.

At least there’s that.    

For a fuller analysis of the EV battery metals market check out the May issue of The Northern Miner print and digital editions.

* Frik Els is Editor at Large for MINING.COM and Head of Adamas Inside, providing news and analysis based on Adamas Intelligence data.

The group also forecast global primary nickel usage at 3.537 million tons this year and global primary nickel production at 3.735 million tons.

The market balance in 2023 was a surplus of 170,000 tons, rising to 179,000 tons in 2024, the Lisbon-based group said.

World primary nickel production was 3.363 million tons in 2023 and 3.526 million tons in 2024, with primary usage at 3.193 million tons and 3.347 million tons respectively.

In Indonesia, delays to issuance of mining permits (RKABs) resulted in ore tightness in the nickel market, the report said, adding that the effect of the country’s new royalties on the mining sector has yet to be assessed fully.

Primary nickel output in China is also forecast to increase, driven by additional nickel cathode and nickel sulphate production, the report said.

Prices for nickel, used in stainless steel and electric vehicle batteries, fell by more than 7% in 2024 and is up about 3% so far this year.

(By Anjana Anil and Ashitha Shivaprasad; Editing by David Goodman)

Energy-intensive metal production can have a major impact on the environment because of the carbon and other pollutants that are emitted. Some end-consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable practices that cut emissions.

“By making a sustainability price differential public, the value attached to sustainable metals will be transparent and could support the development of the market for sustainable metals,” the exchange said in a release.

“The LME is discussing its proposals with a range of physical market stakeholders, and will provide further progress updates in due course.”

The LME, the world’s largest and oldest forum for trading metals, partnered with digital platform Metalshub for an initiative launched last year to develop a price discovery mechanism for low-carbon nickel.

It is now planning to launch a broader series of sustainable metal premia for the aluminum, copper, nickel and zinc traded on its platforms, underpinned by a robust assessment process.

“We welcome the LME’s proposal as a much-needed move to enable the proper pricing of low-carbon, sustainable products,” said Nick Stansbury, head of climate solutions, asset management, at financial services company L&G.

“We believe transparent pricing of sustainable materials is critical to incentivizing investment into transition technologies in the mining industry.”

The exchange will aim to establish an administrator to set the rules, policies and process for the sustainability premia.

Its proposed sustainability criteria would include carbon footprint thresholds, calculated with a metal-specific carbon footprint methodology, and third-party sustainability assurance.

(By Anjana Anil and Pratima Desai; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

While prices of aluminum, zinc, and copper have given up the heady gains of 2024, the 71-year-old tycoon is betting that a simpler structure for the sprawling group and growing demand for critical minerals will add to the allure of his companies even as the specter of a global recession looms.

The overhaul will allow the group to list each of its key businesses: aluminum, oil & gas, power, iron & steel, along with the publicly traded core company Vedanta. The demerger could provide new funding sources and increase financial transparency across the group, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mary Ellen Olson.

“The time for growth is now as demand is strong, supply is tight, and we’re positioned in the right markets,” Agarwal said in a recent video interview from his London home, adding that most of the materials mined by his company are locally consumed. The billionaire said that this makes Vedanta less vulnerable to potential disruptions in global supply chains arising from US President Donald Trump’s tariff measures.

Vedanta is also expanding the gamut of its operations by winning rights to mine critical minerals like nickel, chromium, platinum, and cobalt in India through November auctions. The global demand for these and other metals that are key to energy transition remains high and will give the group the next fillip of growth, Agarwal said.

Middle East and Africa

Agarwal has long dreamed of building an empire that spans continents and competing with the ranks of the world’s largest diversified miners, including Rio Tinto Group and BHP Group Ltd.

The group plans to spend more on overseas projects and is doubling on investments in the Middle East and Africa. Vedanta is set to invest $2 billion in copper-processing facilities in Saudi Arabia — one of the largest by a foreign firm — as the oil kingdom aspires to build its metals and mining industries significantly.

“Saudi not only has good geology but strong local consumption too,” Agarwal said, adding that “funding is never a problem for a project like that.”

According to local government estimates, Saudi Arabia has untapped resources, including phosphate, copper, gold, and bauxite, worth as much as $2.5 trillion. About a third of its investments in the country will be funded through internal accruals, and for the rest, the group will seek project financing, Agarwal said.

The company is currently seeking funds to develop mines in Africa, too. The Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia, which it controls, has a major copper deposit and cobalt reserves, according to Vedanta.

The financing options being weighed range from a billion-dollar bond offering, “off-take financing, or sale of a minority stake to global investors, for which there is significant demand,” Agarwal said.

Cutting debt

Vedanta shares dropped about 7% this year in Mumbai trading amid a slump in commodities prices. Other than economic growth woes, weighing on investor sentiment is the company’s $6.2 billion debt, the upshot of an acquisition spree since the turn of the century that includes stakes in Bharat Aluminium Co. and Hindustan Zinc Ltd.

Over the last two years, Agarwal has been on a drive to cut leverage and push back repayment deadlines on the group’s borrowings. The plan is to halve it over the next three years.

The group will be cautious about loading up on debt as it chases growth for each demerged unit, he said. All existing shareholders of Vedanta will receive one new share in each of the newly listed entities against each share they own in the parent company.

“There is no need for a stake sale to reduce our debt at the parent company level, and neither are there any plans to sell our stakes in any of the demerged entities,” Agarwal, who started as a scrap metal dealer and has weathered cash crunches and government friction, said. Each listed company can look at issuing fresh shares to raise funds for expansion, he said.

The so-called debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization ratio — a financial metric that measures a company’s ability to pay off its debt obligations — for Vedanta has to be brought down to 1 from the current 1.4 and maintained, according to him.

Over the years, Agarwal has been grooming his daughter Priya Agarwal Hebbar to take over from him as the head of the conglomerate. A psychology and film studies graduate from the University of Warwick, the 35-year-old is the chairwoman of Hindustan Zinc and is on the board of Vedanta.

“The group’s future is very focused on transition and critical minerals, and that is where the company will go,” Hebbar said.

(By Anto Antony)

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.

The licences, sponsored by the UK and located in the Pacific Ocean, are held by UKSR, which was acquired in 2023 by Norway’s Loke Marine Minerals from US defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Loke filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, prompting an auction for its assets.

The Department for Business and Trade said the transfer of these licences could be assessed under the National Security Investment Act, according to an email sent to Loke’s CEO Walter Sognnes and reviewed by the Financial Times. The government official also reportedly suggested restructuring UKSR under a UK holding company to avoid scrutiny, stating that having a Norwegian parent company would be “problematic”, according to the the FT.

The Act grants the British government authority to examine and intervene in transactions deemed a threat to national security. The department declined to comment when contacted by FT.

The potential sale comes amid heightened global interest in critical minerals used in batteries, such as nickel, cobalt and copper, which are found on the ocean floor.

US President Donald Trump recently voiced support for accelerating deep-sea mining, adding pressure on allies to secure mineral supply chains.

Loke, which had been developing seabed mapping technology, said any ownership structure would be discussed by the future owner and UK authorities.

Seabed mining permits in international waters require state sponsorship under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. China currently leads in the number of such licences. Norway plans to begin commercial deep-sea mining in its national waters, while the UK, France and Germany remain cautious over environmental concerns.

The Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) previously warned Loke that UKSR risked non-compliance with exploration terms. The company has also reportedly fallen behind on licence payments.

Sources close to Loke said the company struggled to raise capital, blaming regulatory uncertainty and delays by ISA member states.

“No international regulation has taken longer to get into place than this one,” one source told FT.

Among the bidders for UKSR’s licences was environmental group Greenpeace, which entered the auction as a stunt to protest the commercialization of deep-sea mining. Other bidders include Loke’s founders and UK-based TechnipFMC, one of its investors.

Duncan Currie, legal adviser to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, criticized foreign control of licence-holding firms, stating that it undermines the legal framework that governs seabed access.

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 company said it produced 42,000 tons of nickel in the first quarter of 2025, a 1.1% drop from the same period of last year, while palladium production eased 0.6% to 741,000 ounces. Production of platinum rose by 0.6% to 180,000 ounces.

“The modest decline of nickel production was temporary and due to scheduled short-term repairs and maintenance of equipment, aiming to support steady operation of main technological units,” the company’s senior vice president Alexander Popov said in a statement.

Nornickel explained the drop in the nickel production was due to maintenance works at several of its plants.

Nornickel is under pressure domestically from the rouble’s 40% rally against the US dollar, which decreases its revenues, as well as from high interest rates, which affect investment plans.

Internationally, the company is facing falling or stagnating prices for some of its metals due to lower demand amid market turbulence triggered by US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.

While Nornickel is not subject to direct Western sanctions, the measures have prompted some Western producers to avoid buying Russian metal, complicated payments, and restricted access to Western equipment.

“We believe that the risk of a global economic slowdown as a result of tariff wars will negatively affect the company’s metals portfolio,” BCS brokerage analysts said in a note.

(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Ros Russell)

In new legislation branded as ‘One Project, One Process’ the new bill would speed up approvals in strategically important mining projects starting with the Ring of Fire and critical minerals, Ford said.

“Right now it takes 15 years to open a new mine in Ontario,” Ford said. “That’s 15 years of missed opportunity, 15 years of jumping through hoops… these delays were never acceptable, but today, more than ever, we need to act with President Trump taking direct aim at our economy, it cannot be business as usual.”

The measure if passed by the Provincial Legislative Assembly, will aim to have a 50% reduction in the time taken for government review for mining projects, including a coordinated consultation with indigenous groups on whose lands these mines will be built.

Ontario is also tightening its norms over the involvement of foreign entities such as China in critical mining projects, Ford said.

(By Divya Rajagopal; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Read More: Prime Minister Mark Carney vows to speed permits, make Canada energy superpower

The 3-month nickel contract on the LME is currently trading around $15,600.

Later this month, Indonesia will start imposing higher royalty fees of 14% to 19% on nickel ore output depending on price levels, up from a single tariff of 10%, according to a copy of the regulation.

The semi-refined product nickel pig iron will be charged with a 5% to 7% royalty, while nickel matte will have a 3.5% to 5.5% royalty, the regulation said. That compared with the current 5% single tariff on nickel pig iron and 2% on nickel matte.

“We support the government’s royalty plan, but we need to pick a more appropriate timing,” Alexander Barus, chairman of smelters group Indonesia Nickel Industry Forum (FINI), told Reuters after a meeting with mining ministry officials.

He said the group had asked the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry to consider waiting until nickel prices on the LME has reached at least $17,000 per ton, a level that would allow companies’ margin to cover the costs from the royalty hike.

Researchers at BMI said earlier this month that they had downgraded their nickel price outlook this year from an annual average of $17,000 to $15,000 per ton due to oversupply conditions while US President Trump’s trade policy added exacerbated risks.

“The issue is, prices of our output, such as stainless steel, nickel pig iron and ferronickel, are also dropping now. It will be onerous with the royalties,” Barus added.

Nickel miners are already struggling with higher costs, including for fuel, Indonesia Nickel Miner Association (APNI) has said, after the government removed subsidies for biodiesel earlier this year. APNI has also called for a delay on the new fees’ implementation.

A senior official overseeing mining at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking comment.

Royalties on other products such as copper ore, copper concentrate, refined tin will also be raised, among others.

The government previously said the new royalty policy was intended to improve industry governance. It comes as the government’s budget deficit is widening due to a drop in tax revenue and bigger spending for President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship programs.

(By Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by David Evans)

After making his fortune in chrome and shipping under family conglomerate Yildirim Holding AS, he spun off those businesses this year into CoreX Holding. The new venture already has some nickel-processing facilities, and with prices near a multiyear low, Yildirim sees now as a good time to scale up.

Nickel has slid as Chinese firms ramped up output in Indonesia, leading to fire sales from some major miners as their higher-cost assets struggle to compete. Yildirim thinks he can make such assets profitable by improving operations, and initially focusing on products with higher nickel content than Chinese nickel pig iron. He expects nickel prices to recover in the next two to three years.

“We want to come to the nickel market when people are exiting,” the 65-year-old said in an interview in his Istanbul office. “Eventually it will come up and find an equilibrium.”

His foray into nickel also comes at a time when critical metals are increasingly under the spotlight as Western nations view supplies as a matter of national security, especially as the global energy transition stokes fears of potential future shortages. China is the key player in the nickel market, both through its own domestic industry and investments by its firms in places like Indonesia.

He has put about $500 million into the nickel push so far, which includes CoreX’s first acquisition — a majority stake in Ivory Coast miner Compagnie Minière Du Bafing SA in December — and ferronickel plants in North Macedonia and Kosovo that were transfered from the family holding firm. Other parts of his existing metals business include ferroalloy plants in Sweden and Russia, a US chrome and chemicals unit and mining companies in Kazakhstan.

With $2 billion earmarked for more deals, Yildirim said he’s in talks to buy six mines in Colombia, Guatemala and Africa, without elaborating. As the portfolio grows, he plans to order newbuild vessels to cover the supply chain from production to shipping.

The aim is to offer nickel buyers in Europe and the US an alternative to Chinese-supplied products. That will initially be in the stainless steel industry due to the crossover with Yildirim’s chrome business, before expanding to nickel used in batteries, and then to metals including copper, gold and zinc.

China has become a leader in many critical minerals used in everything from electric-vehicle batteries to wind turbines. Western governments are trying to reduce their dependence on those supplies — including through boosting domestic output and striking trade alliances.

To help fund the nickel deals, the billionaire has started talks with long-term investors, and is targeting those including infrastructure and sovereign wealth funds, private equity and family offices.

“I’m not young, I don’t have too much time to waste,” Yildirim said. “So I need to focus on the mid-size or big size projects.”

Anglo-MMG deal

CoreX had its first major setback earlier this year, when it lost out to MMG Ltd. in a bid to buy Anglo American Plc’s nickel business in Brazil. Yildirim said he offered $900 million with financing from UBS Group AG — much higher than the transaction value — and got as far as negotiating the terms of a deal, but Anglo hasn’t explained to why his offer was rejected.

When disposing of assets, it’s not uncommon for sellers to prefer more established miners where there’s more certainty around financing. MMG, controlled by state-owned China Minmetals Corp., has mines across the globe, including the giant Las Bambas copper mine in Peru.

Yildirim bemoaned the decision, calling it a “game-changer in nickel history.” Anglo said it can’t discuss those involved in the process.

“China has grabbed this very important asset from the West to take to China and Anglo is the company letting this happen,” Yildirim said.

(By Patrick Sykes)

The changes to be introduced largely mirror those touted in a public consultation last month, with formerly flat levies on output now rising with commodity prices, according to a regulation document seen by Bloomberg and confirmed by people familiar with the matter. They asked not to be named as the details aren’t yet public.

The increase, at a time of trade turbulence and uncertainty in metals markets, is indicative of the extent to which the expense associated with flagship policies, including a new state investment fund and free school lunches, are weighing on Jakarta. Many producers are already under pressure from low prices.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, which regulates mining, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to the document, a flat levy of 10% on nickel ore production will be replaced with taxes varying from 14% to 19%, depending on price levels determined by the government. Lower grade ore that’s then processed into battery-grade nickel will pay a smaller 2% royalty.

“The regulation comes with a slight change to what had been proposed,” Ryan Davies, an analyst at Citigroup Inc, wrote in a note. “Overall, this might affect Indonesia’s dominance in the down streaming industry.”

“This might affect Indonesia’s dominance in the down streaming industry,” amid potential supply response in the medium-to-longer term via deterrent of new supply growth

Royalties paid on higher grade ferronickel and nickel matte will be lower than stipulated in the public consultation. Indonesia’s huge smelting industry has been grappling for months with a shortage of ore which has crimped margins and forced many firms to slash output.

Changes to royalties paid on open pit coal production, which accounts for the lion’s share of Indonesia’s massive output, will depend on existing permits. The levies for underground coal mining, however, will be lower by comparison.

Shares of coal companies including PT Bumi Resources and PT Indika Energy, who will see their royalties lowered under the new regime, rallied on Wednesday. Other Indonesian mining stocks were mixed.

The regulation comes into effect 15 days from April 11, the registration date, according to the document. The royalty increases were first reported by Bloomberg Technoz, a partnership between Mayapada Group’s PT Berita Mediatama Indonesia and Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News.

(By Eddie Spence)

The order lays bare what manufacturers, industry consultants, academics and others have long warned Washington about: that the US is overly reliant on Beijing and others for processed versions of the minerals that power its entire economy.

China is a top global producer of 30 of the 50 minerals considered critical by the US Geological Survey, for example, and has been curtailing exports in recent months.

Trump signed an order directing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to begin a national security review under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. That is the same law Trump used in his first term to impose 25% global tariffs on steel and aluminum and one he used in February to launch a probe into potential copper tariffs.

Asked for comment on the order, China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that “artificial interference in the supply chain violates the laws of the market economy and international trade rules.”

US dependency on minerals imports “raises the potential for risks to national security, defense readiness, price stability, and economic prosperity and resilience,” Trump said in the order.

Within 180 days, Lutnick is required to report his findings to the president, including whether to impose tariffs. Were Trump to then impose a tariff on a nation’s critical minerals, the rate would supersede the “reciprocal” tariffs Trump imposed earlier this month, according to the White House.

The review will assess US vulnerabilities for the processing of all critical minerals – including cobalt, nickel and the 17 rare earths, as well as uranium – how foreign actors could be distorting markets, and what steps could be taken to boost domestic supply and recycling, according to the order.

The US currently extracts and processes scant amounts of lithium, has only one nickel mine but no nickel smelter, and has no cobalt mine or refinery. While it has several copper mines, the US has only two copper smelters and is reliant on other nations to process that essential metal.

The probe may create an opportunity for some friendly supplier nations angling for exemptions, given Washington has previously flagged potential tariff carve outs for energy and other minerals that are not available domestically.

“Given Australia is a trusted supplier of critical minerals essential to US industries, this investigation presents an opportunity for the nation to strengthen its position as a reliable supplier of these essential resources,” said Tania Constable, CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia.

“But we cannot afford to be complacent. Australia must negotiate a framework that delivers mutual benefit to both Australian producers and US industries, while also continuing to forge and deepen strategic partnerships with other like-minded nations.”

Rare earths producer Australian Strategic Materials, which has been supported by US government funding, welcomed any efforts to build an alternative supply chain for critical minerals, “particularly in the current environment where supply of critical minerals is dominated by one state player,” its CEO Rowena Smith told Reuters.

The company can support Washington in building domestic capability by replicating its Korean processing plant in the United States, she said.

The order is the latest in Trump’s effort to jumpstart US minerals production and processing. The president last month signed an order directing federal agencies to create a list of US mines that could be quickly approved and federal lands that could be used for minerals processing.

Still, it takes years to build a new mine and processing facility, which has sparked concern about where the US could procure minerals were tariffs broadly imposed.

“Ultimately the US gets certain minerals from China because there are not alternative supplies elsewhere,” said Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

‘Full scope’

Beijing earlier this month placed export restrictions on rare earths in response to Trump’s tariffs, a move that further exacerbated supply concerns amongst Trump officials.

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements used across the defense, electric vehicle, energy and electronics industries. The United States has only one rare earths mine and most of its processed supply comes from China.

The restrictions from China were seen as the latest demonstration of the country’s ability to weaponize its dominance over the mining and processing of critical minerals after it put outright bans on the export of three other metals last year to the US and imposed export controls on others.

Chinese mining companies across the globe have been flooding markets with cheap supplies of critical minerals like rare earths in recent years, fueling calls from industry and investors for Washington to support US projects.

The White House also said Trump was focused on closing tariff loopholes. As with other products, the supply chain for critical minerals processing involves multiple countries.

“An effective policy should take into account the full scope of the supply chain to level the global playing field,” said Abigail Hunter, executive director of SAFE’s Center for Critical Minerals Strategy.

(By Ernest Scheyder, Costas Pitas, Fransiska Nangoy, Melanie Burton and Amy Lv; Editing by Sonali Paul, Saad Sayeed and Tomasz janowski)

One of the world’s largest iron ore producers, Vale said heavy rainfall impacted production in its Brazilian Northern mining complex.

The weaker first-quarter output had been expected, Vale said, and it reaffirmed its outlook to produce between 325 million tons and 335 million tons of iron ore in 2025, as it also began the ramp-up of mining projects VGR1 and Capanema.

Sales of iron ore rose 3.6% in the quarter year-on-year to 66.1 million tons, the report showed, with Vale attributing the increase to supply from inventories, while also noting it has been prioritizing medium-grade products given market conditions.

The average realized price of Vale’s iron ore fines was $90.80 per ton in the quarter ended in March, down almost 10% year-on-year and a 2.4% decline from the last quarter of 2024.

In a note to clients, Citi analysts said iron ore output and sales came mostly in line with expectations, but copper and nickel beat their estimates.

“We estimate very minor downgrades to consensus EBITDA estimates,” analysts Alexander Hacking and Stefan Weskott wrote, adding they expect the stock to perform in line following the results.

Vale will release its first-quarter earnings on April 24.

Vale’s copper production increased 11% in the quarter year-on-year to about 90,900 tons, with the firm citing strong performance at the Voisey’s Bay mine in Canada and the Salobo and Sossego operations in Brazil. Copper sales grew 6.6% to about 81,900 tons.

Nickel output rose about 11% year-on-year to around 43,900 tons, mainly due to higher output at Onca Puma in Brazil and better performance at its Canadian assets, Vale said. It sold 38,900 tons of nickel in the quarter, a 17.5% rise from a year earlier.

(By Andre Romani and Marta Nogueira; Editing by Natalia Siniawski and Sonali Paul)

The waters around the Pacific Ocean territory are estimated to contain large amounts of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules filled with the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics.

The request from privately held Impossible Metals asks the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management – which oversees mineral deposits in federal waters – to launch a competitive lease process for the American Samoa nodules.

A BOEM spokesperson confirmed the request and said the agency will decide by May 23 “whether to initiate steps that could lead to a lease sale.” The agency has not held a competitive lease sale since 1991.

If the BOEM decides to move forward, the request would be put out for public comment before any auction.

Supporters of deep-sea mining say it would lessen the need for large mining operations on land, which are often unpopular with host communities. Detractors say more research is needed to determine how the practice could affect ecosystems.

California-based Impossible Metals said it has developed a robotic device with a large claw that uses artificial intelligence to distinguish between nodules and aquatic life.

Any country can allow deep-sea mining in its own territorial waters, roughly up to 200 nautical miles from shore.

That means that California-based Impossible Metals does not need permission from the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the US has not ratified.

Reuters reported last month that the White House is weighing an executive order to let mining companies that want to mine international waters bypass the ISA.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Sandra Maler)

The LME, the world’s oldest and largest forum for industrial metals, hopes new warehouses in Hong Kong will boost access to mainland China, the world’s top consumer of industrial metals.

Approving warehouses in China to store LME traded metal has been a strategic goal since Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing bought the LME in 2012.

Some LME-registered warehouse firms are, however, sceptical about the commercial appeal of Hong Kong as the costs of real estate in the territory are high and they would have to charge more for their services than in neighbouring locations such as Malaysia and Taiwan.

“We will try it and see what happens,” said a source at one global warehousing company, adding that any metal in Hong Kong storage would quickly be moved by Chinese consumers to the mainland.

Hong Kong is not an area of net metal consumption, which in the past had been a factor for LME warehousing.

The LME approved two warehouses run by GKE Metal Logistics and one each for Henry Diaper & Co and PGS East Asia. Their local partners are China Resources Logistics Ltd, Sinotrans Warehousing Ltd and SF Supply Chain Ltd, respectively.

“Hong Kong is now well-positioned to further develop as a key global metals hub servicing the region, and as a gateway for access to the mainland China market,” LME CEO Matthew Chamberlain said in a statement.

The new Hong Kong storage facilities will be able to start accepting metal on July 15, joining the LME’s existing network of 32 locations, the LME said. The exchange approved Hong Kong as a warehouse delivery point in January.

The maximum amount warehouse companies can charge to store metal is 51 cents per metric ton for copper in South Korea and Singapore, but it will be 61 cents in Hong Kong, according to LME documents.

In an internal presentation more than a year ago, the LME said that warehouse rents would have to be subsidized by the Hong Kong government to make the move commercially viable.

No real subsidies have been agreed, a source at another warehousing firm said, but several firms waiting for the LME to approve the listing of their warehouses in Hong Kong expect the cost for them will be lower than market rates.

(By Eric Onstad, Pratima Desai and Polina Devitt; Editing by Andrew Heavens, David Evans and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Two workers were killed and one was left missing after the accident at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park on Sulawesi island last month. The incident occurred in a tailings area affiliated with Chinese producer PT QMB New Energy Materials Co. Ltd, and has forced the factory to halt almost all production, according to traders with knowledge of the situation.

Nearby peers have also had to reduce output, they said, asking not to be named as the matter is sensitive.

QMB’s biggest shareholder GEM Co. Ltd., responding to a Bloomberg query, said production was lower but attributed the drop to planned maintenance and national holidays for Eid al-Fitr, which fell in the first week of April. Park manager PT IMIP, confirming the landslide and casualties, said in a statement that there had been no disruption to output as a result, and blamed prolonged heavy rainfall.

Nickel traders in Southeast Asia and China acknowledged the short-term price impact of the stoppage would likely be limited, but said they were increasingly worried about the potential for repeated disruptions, as the use of high-pressure acid leaching, or HPAL, grows. The method allows producers to use lower-grade ore to extract metal, but comes with high volumes of waste.

Indonesia accounts for more than half the world’s output of nickel and continued outages could crimp global supply — a concern for battery makers even if the metal has been in a persistent surplus in recent years.

Indonesia’s metals sector has been plagued by a string of accidents since it began its breakneck nickel expansion a decade ago — the worst being a 2023 smelter explosion that killed 21 workers and drew reprimands from the government. With the growth of HPAL plants, a failure to properly manage associated waste could once again revive concerns over uneven environmental and safety standards.

In the last five years alone, the Southeast Asian nation has commissioned about 10 HPAL plants, of which half are already in operation, most of them thanks to Chinese investment and expertise. The nickel-extracting method is both cheaper and less carbon-intensive than others but generates nearly double the tailings, which are then dried out and compacted before being deposited at a designated site. Any breakdown in waste management is likely to disrupt normal production.

Experts have questioned whether HPAL, given the significant waste involved, can ever be used safely in the humid archipelago where torrential rain, earthquakes and landslides complicate storage efforts.

“These issues should not be treated as isolated cases in different companies. They reflect a broader industry problem,” said Putra Adhiguna, managing director at the Australia-based Energy Shift Institute. He added that with repeated incidents, supply risks are “always looming in the background”.

PT IMIP said the hub was implementing measures to improve standards and mitigate geological disaster risks in the area — one of many industrial parks spearheaded by former President Joko Widodo to accelerate manufacturing growth — using land reclamation, leveling, and reforestation.

While the exact extent of the current production loss is unclear, the people familiar with the matter said QMB — which also counts China’s Tsingshan Holding Group Co. and Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology Co. Ltd. among its shareholders — would likely see lower output in April than in previous months given an ongoing government investigation into the accident.

The plant shipped more than 25,000 tons of nickel in the first quarter of the year, according to an emailed statement from GEM.

A spokesperson for Indonesia’s ministry of industry did not respond to messages seeking comment.

(By Alfred Cang, Annie Lee and Eddie Spence)

The Trump administration is drafting an executive order to enable stockpiling of deep-sea metals found on the Pacific Ocean seabed to counter China’s dominance of battery minerals and rare earth supply chains, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The stockpile would “create large quantities ready and available on US territory to be used in the future,” in case of a conflict with China that might constrain imports of metals and rare earths, the report said.

China has placed some rare earth elements under export restrictions in retaliation to US President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs on Chinese goods, potentially cutting the US off from critical minerals vital to everything from smartphones to electric car batteries.

Following the report, the Chinese foreign ministry said that under international law, the seabed and its resources “are the common heritage of mankind.”

“Exploration and exploitation of mineral resources in the international seabed area must be conducted in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and within the framework of the International Seabed Authority,” the ministry said in a statement.

China produces around 90% of the world’s refined rare earths, a group of 17 elements used across the defense, electric vehicle, clean energy and electronics industries. The US imports much of its rare earths, which come largely from China.

(By Ethan Wang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

The move is aimed at countering Chinese global dominance in the critical minerals sector by tapping into a largely unexploited part of the Earth. The polymetallic nodules formed on the sea floor are said to contain rich amounts of nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese used in batteries, as well as traces of rare earth minerals, a group of 17 elements required to build high-tech applications.

China is currently by far the world’s biggest supplier of rare earth minerals, accounting for nearly 70% of the global production, the US Geological Survey estimates. The Asian nation also controls about 90% of the world’s processing of rare earths, and is a world leader in the processing of battery metals.

The executive order, according to FT, would allow the US government to build a “strategic reserve” of these critical minerals, like it had done with gold and oil. The plan is to “create large quantities ready and available on US territory to be used in the future” in case of a conflict with China that might constrain imports of metals and rare earths, the FT sources said.

Amid escalating trade tensions between the two countries in recent months, China has already leveraged its supply dominance by placing export restrictions on some rare earth minerals.

The critical minerals stockpile is part of a broader push to fast-track deep-sea mining applications under US law, and to create onshore processing capacity, the FT report added. It coincides with a Reuters report earlier this month that the Trump administration is considering an executive order to accelerate seabed mining by allowing companies to bypass authorities backed by the United Nations and seek permits directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Like the US, China also has ambitions to mine the ocean floor, and according to reports, is poised to lead the “race to the bottom”.

As for the minerals found onshore, Trump signed an executive order last month to activate the Defense Production Act with the aim of boosting domestic mining and processing of critical minerals and making the US less reliant on China.

Based on data from the National Mining Agency (ANM), the study points to threats such as deforested areas left unrestored, contamination of soil and water, and the physical instability of abandoned mines.

An internal ANM document obtained by Reuters and cited in the study acknowledges the agency’s lack of data and oversight on areas that mine operators should be restoring.

“There is total lack of control over the number of potentially abandoned mines, the size of areas requiring restoration, and the severity of degradation and damage caused,” stated the ANM document, which was dated November 2024 and signed by the head of a task force to update regulations.

The ANM did not respond to a request for comment.

The Brazilian Mining Association (IBRAM) declined to comment before reviewing the study.

Brazil is a major producer of iron ore, and also mines gold and nickel.

Instituto Escolhas noted that under Brazilian law, companies are responsible for restoring areas degraded by mining activity. However, the study flagged gaps in enforcement, including a lack of ANM inspectors.

Larissa Rodrigues, the institute’s director of research, said miners should be required to provide financial guarantees of their ability to restore areas before receiving permits.

The names of the mining companies involved were not disclosed by the agency and did not appear in the study.

(By Ricardo Brito, Marta Nogueira and Marcela Ayres; Editing by Brad Haynes and Rod Nickel)