Critical Minerals Report (10.25.2026): Billions of Dollars Fuel the Race to Control Technology Metals

written by Tracy Hughes | October 25, 2026

General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) issued a termination notice on July 1 for its long-term magnet supply agreement with e-VAC Magnetics LLC. The supplier initiated arbitration on July 7, and Reuters reported the dispute on October 22.

Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU | TSX: EFR), which has agreed to acquire the magnet business, had already disclosed the termination notice and arbitration in an October 13 securities filing. The filing also detailed an amended acquisition agreement addressing the dispute and allowing for potential purchase-price adjustments. The supplier contests the termination, and the acquisition remains pending.

Customers are also engineering around the problem. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TWSE: 2330 | NYSE: TSM) has surveyed suppliers about rare-earth-free motors for factory automation. The talks are preliminary, nothing has been deployed, and TSMC declined to comment. The message to producers is still clear: when access becomes unreliable, engineers design you out. Or, as Jack Lifton puts it at the end of every column he currently writes on InvestorNews.com, “Follow where value is added.”

The squeeze is element by element

Japanese officials and executives fear yttrium shortages within months unless supply improves or alternatives are found. Yttrium goes into heat-resistant engine components and semiconductor equipment. Meanwhile, China’s September rare earth exports rose 6.7% year over year to 4,269.8 tonnes. Don’t be fooled by the aggregate, as Dr. Mark Andrich of CriticalMineralsPlatform.com always says. A bigger total tells you nothing about a specific element, grade or destination.

Diplomacy is offering managed relief, not free flow. On October 15, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was ready to keep facilitating rare earth export licences for the EU in exchange for reciprocity on Chinese dual-use cases. That is controlled trade. Watch the calendar, too. Back in September, the broader Kuala Lumpur arrangements were extended to January 10, 2027. That is not a new October fix for element-specific licensing.

Building the chain, not just the mine

Europe got more concrete on October 19. Neo Performance Materials Inc. (TSX: NEO | OTCQX: NOPMF) was invited to prepare an Innovation Fund grant agreement for up to €126 million toward its roughly €400 million Project GAUSS in Estonia. The project links separation, metallization and magnet manufacturing, lifting magnet capacity from 2,000 to about 5,000 tonnes a year. The final investment decision and grant agreement are still outstanding, with signature due by March 23, 2027. This is the right model because mines alone don’t make magnets. And speaking of innovation, I have a phone call with Douglas Morrison from the Centre for Excellence and Mining Innovation at 2 p.m. as he prepares to join the CMI Board.

In the U.S., Phoenix Tailings, Inc. announced plans on October 20 for a US$375 million separation facility in Rochester, New York. At full operation, it would process about 18,000 tons of rare earth material a year, supporting roughly 3,000 tons of metals downstream. Some operations are targeted for 2027 and full production for 2028. New York offered up to US$3 million in tax credits, and a previously announced US$500 million federal loan commitment remains conditional. It’s a big plan. Now show me financing, commissioning and saleable product.

Arafura Rare Earths Limited (ASX: ARU) announced a binding five-year offtake agreement on October 12 that ramps to 850 tonnes of NdPr oxide a year at nameplate capacity, up from 500 tonnes in its May term sheet. The unnamed buyer is a trader involved in the U.S. Project Vault initiative, and pricing is tied to a global seaborne index. Customary conditions apply.

Southeast Asia is warming up slowly. The EU and Vietnam agreed on October 22 to work toward critical raw materials cooperation, with no financing or supply deal attached. Malaysia approved one raw rare earth export application for R&D under its revised framework. It didn’t name the applicant or confirm a shipment, and it explicitly tied overseas testing to domestic investment.

In Australia, Resources Minister Madeleine King said on October 14 that nationalisation is an option for Northern Minerals Limited (ASX: NTU), though no decision has been made. China-linked investors have failed to comply with divestment orders, and the ownership uncertainty is delaying Browns Range.

Follow the money, carefully

Big numbers are everywhere. Read the fine print.

Restarts, roads and hedges

Magna Mining Inc. (TSX: NICU | OTCQX: MGMNF | FSE: 8YD) released its Crean Hill prefeasibility study on October 20 and announced board approval to start construction in 2027. First ore sales are targeted for late 2027 and commercial production for early 2030. Initial capital is C$127 million. The lower C$72.4 million funding requirement assumes refundable tax credits and pre-commercial cash flow. Payable production of 35.5 million pounds a year is stated in copper equivalent, a reminder that nickel and precious metals contribute significantly to the economics of copper projects.

Canada and Ontario unveiled a C$8.7 billion industrial plan on October 21. It includes C$5.22 billion for steel over five years and C$2.5 billion for automotive projects over two. Ottawa will also match Ontario’s investment of up to C$1 billion over three years for Ring of Fire roads. Permitting and meaningful First Nations engagement remain central, and a road is not a mine.

On October 19, CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) announced plans for tungsten futures by early 2027, pending regulatory review. The contracts will be cash-settled against an APT price assessment for Rotterdam and Baltimore. Better price visibility and hedging would help, but a futures contract won’t deliver physical tungsten during an export cutoff. CMI members understand this.

Buyers stepping upstream

On October 20, Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) announced strategic funding for The Indium Corporation of America. The money will expand refining and manufacturing in Rome, New York, alongside a planned long-term supply agreement. The amount, capacity and specific minerals weren’t disclosed, though Indium’s portfolio spans indium, gallium and germanium.

Further upstream, Volta Metals Ltd. (CSE: VLTA | OTCQB: VOLMF | FSE: D0W) expanded its indicated resource at Springer on October 19 and published its first gallium estimate. We have an interview planned for Kerem Usenmez with Jack Lifton when he returns from Seoul at the end of this week.

On uranium, Kairos Power LLC has lined up US$643 million for its Tennessee demonstration project: US$368 million of private money and US$275 million of Energy Department financing, some of it previously announced. Separately, the American Bureau of Shipping and the DOE signed an October 12 memorandum on maritime nuclear concepts. Both point to future demand, but neither is an immediate fuel purchase.

Bottom line

This last month has brought real momentum: new grants, binding offtakes and fresh capital for processing in North America, Europe and Australia. The next step is turning that momentum into construction, deliveries and long-term customer relationships. That’s exactly the conversation I’ll be having in Atlanta this week, including on Thursday’s panel about China’s November reckoning.

See you in Atlanta

I’m off to Atlanta this Wednesday and Thursday for Critical Minerals Expo North America. The free two-day trade show and conference is co-located with Battery Recycling Expo North America and E-Waste World Expo North America, with 150+ exhibitors and 60+ expert speakers expected.

CMI Co-Chair Melissa Sanderson and Director Constantine Karayannopoulos are joining me, and I’m moderating two sessions:

  • Wednesday, October 28: A fireside chat on the outlook for North America’s critical minerals supply chain, with Melissa Sanderson and Constantine Karayannopoulos.
  • Thursday, October 29: “America’s Race for Rare Earths and China’s November Reckoning,” with Mark Wall, President & CEO of American Rare Earths Limited (ASX: ARR | OTCQX: ARRNF | ADR: AMRRY); Noah Lehrman, North America Chair of the Minor Metals Trade Association; and Constantine Karayannopoulos. 

If you’re attending, stop by the CMI Booth #518 and say hello. Admission is free.

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InvestorNews.com Media Updates:

InvestorNews.com (YouTube) Interview Updates:

InvestorNews.com News Release Updates:

  • October 23, 2026 – Argentina Metals Announces Insider-Led Private Placement for up to $3 Million CAD https://bit.ly/4zSfU3Z
  • October 23, 2026 – Antimony Resources Corp. (ATMY) (ATMYF) (K8J0) Announces Closing of Financing https://bit.ly/4ia4oJP
  • October 22, 2026 – Spartan Metals Expands Victorio Tungsten-Molybdenum Resource with Measured and Indicated Grades of 0.25% MoEq or 0.15% WO3Eq https://bit.ly/4skGuQv
  • October 21, 2026 – Rackla Metals to Present at Kinvestor Day 2026 Virtual Investor Conference https://bit.ly/4hY0Co6
  • October 21, 2026 – Scandium Canada Completes Record 10,018-Metre Drilling Campaign at Crater Lake, Overdelivering on Every Objective Set for 2026 https://bit.ly/4z2JcNi
  • October 21, 2026 – Media Advisory – Neo Performance Materials Inc. Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Release & Conference Call https://bit.ly/3U58N96
  • October 20, 2026 – Fox Tungsten Mobilizes Fourth Drill Rig to Advance Exploration at Silverboss Property https://bit.ly/4z1LAE3
  • October 19, 2026 – Neo’s European Integrated Magnet Project Selected for €126 Million Grant Under EU Innovation Fund https://bit.ly/4zG1Gmm
  • October 19, 2026 – Renforth Intersects Broad Nickel-Cobalt and Zinc-Copper-Silver Mineralization in Victoria Undercut Drilling, Including 118.0 M of 0.081% NI and 10.9 M of 0.544% Zn https://bit.ly/4idvb89
  • October 19, 2026 – Greenland Mines Shares Begin Trading on Xetra in Germany https://bit.ly/4k51Gb1
  • October 19, 2026 – Deep Sea Minerals Corp. Highlights U.S. Treasury Recognition of Deep Sea Mining in Critical Minerals Policy and Provides Corporate Update https://bit.ly/4islhkd
  • October 19, 2026 – Volta More than Doubles Springer Indicated Resource to 122.4 Mt, Ranks Among North America’s Five Largest Rare Earth Deposits by M&I Tonnage*, and Delivers First Gallium Estimate https://bit.ly/4hSX2M3
  • October 19, 2026 – Arlington Innovation Partners Appoints Jack Lifton to Its Advisory Board https://bit.ly/4i67aQd
  • October 19, 2026 – Renforth Successfully Intersects Gold in Both Drillholes Undercutting Surface Gold Results within the 2025 MRE Pit Shell at Wholly Owned Parbec Gold Deposit in Malartic, Quebec https://bit.ly/4yTjN8v
  • October 16, 2026 – Antimony Resources Corp. (ATMY) (ATMYF) (K8J0) Announces Closing of Order Book for Financing https://bit.ly/4dGOs0s
  • October 16, 2026 – Grid Announces Adoption of Advance Notice By-Law and Provides Shareholder Meeting Update https://bit.ly/4sdQzih
  • October 15, 2026 – Antimony Resources Corp. (ATMY) (ATMYF) (K8J0) Announces Financing https://bit.ly/4ypH4Oi
  • October 14, 2026 – Antimony Resources Corp. (ATMY) (ATMYF) (K8J0) Reports More Massive Antimony-Bearing Stibnite (“Sb”) of 21.45% Antimony (Sb) over 1.10 Meters (m) and 15.0% Sb over 0.8 m in a Mineralized Zone of 4.36% Sb over 13.0 m at the Main Zone https://bit.ly/3UsXg3p
  • October 14, 2026 – Scandium Canada Discovers New Potential Zone East of the TG Deposit: Over 500 Metres of the Same Rock as the Current Resource https://bit.ly/4B5oGga
  • October 14, 2026 – Greenland Mines Applauds President Trump’s Focus on Greenland Mineral Exploration, Reinforcing Its Importance to U.S. and Allied Security https://bit.ly/47iORm4
  • October 14, 2026 – Stakeholder Secures Mineral Claims Through 2032-2040, Strengthening Long Term Presence in Yukon White Gold District https://bit.ly/3TXy592
  • October 13, 2026 – Nord Precious Metals Announces Filing of Ni 43-101 Technical Report for the Gowganda Silver Tailings Project, Ontario with an Updated Mineral Resource Estimate https://bit.ly/4dFZnYd
  • October 13, 2026 – Element One Strengthens Leadership Team to Advance Hydrogen and Critical Minerals Projects https://bit.ly/4hTC26r
  • October 13, 2026 – Almonty to Host Investor Day via Live Webcast on Monday, October 19, 2026 https://bit.ly/47cAFem
  • October 13, 2026 – High-Grade Tungsten Mineralization Confirmed at Rackla Metals’ Lentung https://bit.ly/3W7yNRH
  • October 12, 2026 – Date of Annual General Meeting and Closing Date for Director Nominations https://bit.ly/4rWDrxG
  • October 9, 2026 – Greenland Mines President Invited to Join Global Business and Policy Leaders at 2026 Arctic Circle Assembly and Mining Roundtable https://bit.ly/4zpgXYQ
  • October 8, 2026 – Silver Bullet Mines Corp. Provides Significant Gold Assay Results from Columbia / Gold Queen Complex Including 41.1 G/T Au (1.2 Oz) https://bit.ly/4ehWb55
  • October 8, 2026 – Defense Metals Resource Upgrade Drilling Intersects 2.33% TREO over 153 Metres at the Wicheeda Rare Earth Project https://bit.ly/3WfjyGj
  • October 8, 2026 – Grid Metals Provides Project Update at Its Falcon West Cesium Project; Grants Incentive Options https://bit.ly/3VE16aa
  • October 8, 2026 – AR3 receives A$1 Million R&D tax incentive refund https://bit.ly/4jawgzR
  • October 7, 2026 – Scandium Canada Finds More Scandium Outside Current Crater Lake Resource: First Hole to the North of TG Deposit Intercepts 150.1 m at 292 ppm Scandium Oxide https://bit.ly/4jcr52f
  • October 7, 2026 – Nord Precious Metals Closes Non-Brokered Critical Mineral Flow-Through Share Private Placement https://bit.ly/4jJAlem
  • October 7, 2026 – Fox Tungsten Reports Initial Assay Results from 2026 Drill Program, Including High-Grade Intervals at RC South https://bit.ly/3Wd3CEv
  • October 6, 2026 – Silver Bullet Mines Corp. Provides Exciting Update on Columbia / Gold Queen Complex https://bit.ly/4hPhyMj
  • October 6, 2026 – Volta Completes 2026 Drill Program with Wide Rare Earth and Gallium Intervals Across the Springer Rare Earth-Gallium Deposit and Identifies Niobium as a Potential Additional Critical Metal https://bit.ly/4hxVuXx
  • October 5, 2026 – Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp. To Present at The John Tumazos Very Independent Research Virtual Conference on October 6, 2026 https://bit.ly/4rMtQcO
  • October 5, 2026 – Antimony Resources Corp. (ATMY) (ATMYF) (K8J0) Announces Closing of $5,000,000 Flow-Thru Financing https://bit.ly/3Ub0ZT9
  • October 5, 2026 – Greenland Mines Doubles AnorTech Stake to 19.9%; Extends Critical-Minerals Platform to Smelter-Grade Alumina, Lunar Construction Materials https://bit.ly/4hwXMWV
  • October 5, 2026 – Oreterra CEO Letter to Shareholders Provides Forward Guidance on Trek South Drill Results in Advance of Assays https://bit.ly/3VxoAh8
  • October 5, 2026 – Renforth Intersects Broad Nickel-Cobalt and Zinc-Copper-Silver Mineralization in Victoria Undercut Drilling, Including 118.0 M of 0.081% Ni and 10.9 M of 0.544% Zn https://bit.ly/4j5f5jc
  • October 5, 2026 – American Tungsten Files the IMA Technical Report https://bit.ly/4iZYBsv
  • October 5, 2026 – Power Metallic Commences Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Nisk Project https://bit.ly/4rMPI7K

About the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI)

The Critical Minerals Institute (CMI) is a global think tank and central hub for the critical minerals ecosystem, connecting companies, capital markets and policymakers. Through its monthly CMI Masterclasses, the Critical Minerals Report (CMR) published every two weeks, the twice-monthly Critical Minerals Report Podcast, bespoke research and board-level advisory services, CMI delivers actionable intelligence spanning exploration finance, supply chains, industrial policy and geopolitics.

CMI tracks 12 leading national and multilateral critical minerals lists and applies a rigorous comparative process to independently select and maintain its proprietary CMI Watchlist of 24 critical minerals. Minerals are evaluated against one another based on strategic importance, supply chain concentration, geopolitical exposure, substitutability and relevance to defense, technology and economic security. Through its strategic partnership with the Critical Minerals Platform (CMP), CMI offers Platinum members access to independent mineral pricing, market forecasts, corporate intelligence and global supply chain data. Critical Minerals Institute (CMI)

CMI also organizes its flagship annual event, CMI Summit 6 — Critical Minerals Diplomacy in a Fragmenting Global Economy. Taking place May 17–18, 2027, at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, Canada, the Summit brings together government leaders, institutional investors, policymakers, technical experts and industry executives from around the world to examine supply chain security, industrial policy, geopolitical developments, financing, downstream processing, technological innovation and the commercial realities shaping the global critical minerals economy.

For more information, visit CriticalMineralsInstitute.com.



The Best Defense: Why Wicheeda Matters to Korea

written by InvestorNews | October 25, 2026

Defense Metals Corp. (TSXV: DEFN | OTCQB: DFMTF) is positioning its Wicheeda project in British Columbia as a potential Canadian source of rare earth materials for Korean industrial supply chains. In an InvestorNews interview with Tracy Hughes, President, CEO and Director Mark Tory outlined the priorities behind his trip to Seoul, including meetings with Hanwha and an appearance before Korean corporations at a British Columbia government event. Tory’s investment case centres on Wicheeda’s metallurgy and its potential to reduce the amount of material requiring downstream chemical processing.

Tory is travelling to the 22nd International Rare Earths Conference, taking place October 27–29, 2026. The visit also provides an opportunity to advance discussions under the non-binding memorandum of understanding announced in May with Hanwha Ocean Co. Ltd. and Hanwha Corporation. That framework covers potential long-term offtake and strategic investment, subject to further due diligence, negotiations and definitive agreements.

Hanwha’s interest also reflects the Korean group’s ambitions in Canada’s naval and maritime sectors. The May announcement described a potential partnership aimed at securing the critical materials needed for those capabilities. For a Korean industrial group, that places a Canadian rare earth project within a wider strategy for its manufacturing supply chains.

Tory said Hanwha is reviewing Defense Metals’ data room as the parties explore potential investment, offtake and technical support. He indicated that any agreement would likely come in 2027.

At Wicheeda, Tory identified bastnaesite and monazite among the rare earth minerals supporting the project’s processing case. He described the ability to upgrade material grading approximately 2.4% total rare earth oxides, or TREO, into a concentrate grading about 50% through crushing, grinding and flotation. “It all revolves around the metallurgy and the ability for us to upgrade from that 2.4% TREO in the ground to a 50% concentrate grade,” he said.

The commercial significance, in Tory’s assessment, is the effect on the hydrometallurgical plant, where the concentrate undergoes chemical processing. A higher concentrate grade means less material needs to pass through that stage for a given rare earth output, potentially reducing plant size and costs. He described the intended advantage as “lower capex, lower opex to get the same output.” For prospective Korean partners, those costs are central to assessing Wicheeda as a potential long-term supplier.

The company’s May 2026 SGS pilot program announcement set an approximately 50% TREO concentrate target using material representative of different periods in the mine plan. That concentrate was intended to feed downstream hydrometallurgical pilot testing and support future engineering studies. Tory said restarting hydrometallurgical pilot work at SGS is among the company’s near-term priorities, providing further evidence for the process design ahead of full feasibility.

Resource modelling is another workstream. The October 8 drilling results included 2.33% TREO over a drilled interval of 153.2 metres in hole WI26-104, while six of seven western pit wall holes exceeded predicted grades, averaging 24% higher. Across all 19 inferred resource upgrade holes, however, assays averaged 87% of predicted grades in the inferred resource block model. Defense Metals is updating its models to assess the implications, with any resulting changes to resources, reserves or mine life still to be established.

Following the filing of its pre-feasibility study in April 2025, Defense Metals is targeting a start in early 2027 for the full feasibility study, Tory said. Discussions with Hatch and SRK point to an estimated 15- to 18-month study period. That makes the upcoming pilot work and resource modelling relevant to the engineering decisions that will shape the next stage.

On permitting, Tory described continuing environmental baseline studies, communication with provincial and federal governments, and engagement with local communities. He said feedback has been positive and emphasized the importance of identifying and addressing concerns as they arise. Those activities remain part of the project’s development and approval process.

For shareholders, Tory’s immediate priorities are progress on strategic partnerships, the next hydrometallurgical pilot campaign and the start of full feasibility. “So it’s going to be a pretty busy three or four months,” he said. For prospective Korean partners, those milestones will help establish whether Wicheeda can become a dependable, commercially competitive source of rare earth materials. That is the opportunity Tory is taking to Seoul, with the next stage focused on turning technical progress and industrial interest into a viable supply relationship.

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Rare Earth Metal and Alloy Capability Outside of China in October 2026

written by Jack Lifton | October 25, 2026

In my September 21 article, I reviewed the state of rare earth metal and alloy production outside China, distinguishing between companies that can manufacture these materials and those that have only announced plans to do so. I have since identified two additional operations that deserve consideration for inclusion in that inventory. One is in Vietnam and the other in India. Both are important, but for different reasons, and neither should be mistaken for an established, large scale commercial producer without further qualification.

The first is SRE Vietnam, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Tokai Trading Co., Ltd. In July 2026, Evolution Metals & Technologies Corp. (Nasdaq: EMAT) announced it had received an initial shipment of five metric tonnes of neodymium-praseodymium metal from SRE Vietnam via Japan’s Senri Trading. The material was reportedly destined for subsequent alloy and magnet manufacturing in South Korea. This matters because it describes an actual delivery of rare earth metal to a customer, not just another announcement of an intention to manufacture metal at some future date.

However, one important qualification remains. The delivery of five tonnes of neodymium-praseodymium metal does not, by itself, establish that SRE Vietnam manufactured that metal from rare earth oxides at its own facility. I have not yet independently verified the company’s metallization process, installed equipment, production capacity, or the material’s full origin. Consequently, I believe SRE Vietnam should be provisionally included in the inventory as an operating supplier of rare earth metal, with its independent metallization capability still requiring confirmation.

I also want to emphasize that SRE Vietnam should not be confused with Shin-Etsu’s activities in Vietnam. These are separate operations and must be evaluated independently. If SRE Vietnam can show an operating metallization facility capable of producing commercial quantities of neodymium-praseodymium metal from oxide feedstock, it will deserve a more definitive place among the relatively few producers outside China. For now, the reported delivery is encouraging evidence of commercial activity, but not yet conclusive evidence of independent, industrial scale metal production.

The second addition is India’s government owned IREL (India) Limited. India’s situation is particularly interesting because it illustrates the difference between having the technical knowledge to produce rare earth metals and having an established commercial industry that can supply them.

IREL has long produced and refined rare earth compounds. Its Rare Earths Division at Aluva, Kerala, produces separated, high-purity rare earth oxides. This is an important industrial capability, but oxide production is not metal production. I have repeatedly emphasized this distinction because too many discussions of rare earth supply chains assume that producing a separated oxide somehow completes the process of making a useful industrial material. It does not.

More relevant to this discussion is IREL’s establishment of rare earth metal demonstration facilities at its Rare Earth and Titanium Theme Park in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. In January 2026, the Indian government reported that IREL had established mini-plants to produce lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium metals. In addition, research and development conducted by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center has demonstrated kilogram-scale metallothermic reduction of neodymium-praseodymium compounds and small-batch production of samarium metal.

These developments matter because they show India is moving beyond purely academic research toward practical demonstrations of indigenous rare earth metallization technologies. They do not, however, establish that India has created a commercially competitive rare earth metal industry.

I would therefore classify IREL as a pilot-scale and demonstration-stage producer of rare earth metals. I would not include its oxide-refining capacity, its proposed magnet-manufacturing capacity, or the nominal capacity of its demonstration facilities in any calculation of established commercial rare earth metal production outside China. Until we have evidence of sustained throughput, reproducible product quality, competitive production costs, and actual customer qualification, it would be premature to describe these facilities as established sources of commercial supply.

These two additions illustrate a larger problem in evaluating the development of the rare earth supply chain outside China. We have become accustomed to treating announcements of technical achievements, pilot plant construction, and even proposed production capacities as interchangeable with operating industrial facilities. They are not.

Manufacturing rare earth metals is a specialized branch of extractive metallurgy. It requires not only the ability to reduce rare earth compounds to metals but also the ability to control impurities, achieve reproducible composition, manage energy and reagent consumption, and produce material in the physical and chemical forms downstream manufacturers require. When alloys are involved, the specifications become still more demanding. The customer is not buying a scientific achievement. The customer is buying an industrial input that must perform predictably in a manufacturing process.

This is why I continue to insist that the proper measure of progress in establishing rare earth supply chains outside China is not the number of companies announcing projects, nor the number of governments financing demonstration plants. It is the number of operating facilities that can deliver qualified products in commercially meaningful quantities, at prices customers can afford and that allow suppliers to remain in business.

I have spent much of my industrial career observing the distance between a successful laboratory experiment and a sustainable manufacturing operation. Investors, government agencies, and, unfortunately, some entrepreneurs themselves frequently underestimate that distance. Metallurgical feasibility is necessary, but it is not sufficient. The economics of sustained production and the ultimate customer’s qualification requirements determine whether a technology becomes an industry.

The reported shipment from SRE Vietnam and the demonstrated metallization work in India are therefore welcome additions to our understanding of the emerging rare earth industry outside China. They show progress at two different stages of industrial development. They do not yet justify revising the central conclusion of my September analysis.

China’s dominance in rare earth metal and alloy production stems not only from its access to rare earth minerals or its extensive separation capacity. It results from decades of building and operating the industrial infrastructure that converts separated compounds into the materials manufacturers actually purchase. Replicating that infrastructure elsewhere requires much more than capital expenditure. It requires experienced metallurgists, process engineers, trained operating personnel, reliable feedstocks, quality control, customers willing to qualify the products, and, above all, a business model capable of surviving commercial competition.

The number of organizations outside China that have demonstrated some ability to produce rare earth metals is slowly increasing. The number that have demonstrated sustained, economically competitive production of qualified metals and alloys remains very small indeed.

I will continue to update my inventory as additional evidence becomes available. My purpose is not to compile the longest possible list of companies claiming to participate in the rare earth supply chain. It is to identify those upon which an industrial customer can actually depend.

A facility that has produced a kilogram of rare earth metal has demonstrated a process. A facility that can repeatedly deliver qualified tons of that metal at an economically sustainable price has demonstrated an industry.

The future of rare earth supply security outside China depends upon understanding that distinction.



Jack-in-the-Stox: Rubidium, A Critical Metal in Search of a Market.

written by Jack Lifton | October 25, 2026

In his ongoing Jack-in-the-Stox series, Jack Lifton comments on public companies, technologies, capital markets, supply chains and geopolitics. He is not a licensed investment adviser, and his views are provided for informational purposes only. Nothing in this column constitutes investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security.

Rubidium, chemical symbol Rb and atomic number 37, is one of those elements whose importance to modern technology far outweighs its public recognition. It is an alkali metal, chemically related to lithium, sodium, potassium, and cesium. Discovered in 1861 by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff, rubidium is a soft, highly reactive metal with few direct industrial applications in its elemental form. However, its compounds are used in specialized electronics, precision timing devices, scientific instrumentation, and emerging quantum technologies. The United States government classifies rubidium as a critical mineral, but its inclusion on that list raises a question I believe investors should always ask: Does an element’s technological importance necessarily translate into an economically attractive opportunity for production?

Rubidium is not particularly rare in the Earth’s crust. It occurs in a variety of minerals, most commonly substituting for potassium in mica and feldspar. It also occurs in lithium-bearing pegmatites, particularly those containing lepidolite. Rubidium is commercially unusual because it is rarely found in concentrations sufficient to justify mining it as the principal product. Historically, the industry has obtained commercial rubidium largely as a byproduct of processing minerals mined for other elements, particularly lithium and cesium. The distinction between rubidium occurring in a mineral deposit and an economically recoverable rubidium resource is fundamental. The critical minerals industry’s promotional literature also too often overlooks this distinction.

The global market for rubidium is extraordinarily small. The United States Geological Survey has estimated American consumption in end-use products at less than two metric tons annually. Domestic mine production is negligible, and American users depend on imported rubidium-bearing materials and processed products. No large, transparent international commodity market for rubidium exists, unlike those for copper, nickel, or even the major rare earths. Specialty chemical suppliers often set prices for rubidium metal and its high-purity compounds for relatively small quantities. These prices do not necessarily reflect what an industrial producer could receive for commercial quantities. Investors should be especially careful with calculations that multiply a quoted laboratory chemical price by the number of grams theoretically contained in a mineral deposit. Such arithmetic can produce impressive numbers, but it does not replace a market study.

Why, then, is rubidium considered critical? The answer lies in its applications and the concentration of its supply chain, not in how much is consumed. Rubidium is used in atomic frequency standards and precision timing equipment for communications, navigation, and electronic systems that require extremely stable frequency references. Rubidium atoms also matter in research on quantum sensing and quantum computing. These are technologically sophisticated applications, but they do not necessarily require large quantities of material. A device that depends upon a few grams of highly purified rubidium may be critically important to its user without creating a large commodity market. Indeed, the more sophisticated the application, the more likely purity, consistency, and supplier qualification will matter than available tonnage.

This brings me to Quantum Critical Metals Corp. (TSXV: LEAP | OTCQB: ATOXF | FSE: 86A1), a member of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), which has been investigating recovering rubidium and other potentially valuable critical elements from mica-bearing mineralization in Quebec. Quantum’s work is particularly interesting because it explores recovering rubidium and gallium from minerals not traditionally exploited as commercial sources of those elements. The company’s NMX East project has undergone metallurgical investigations to determine whether it can economically extract and separate the contained elements. Quantum has reported laboratory results indicating approximately 55% recovery of rubidium into solution and approximately 93% recovery of gallium. It has also engaged the University of British Columbia, working with Professor Emeritus David Dreisinger, to investigate improvements in its hydrometallurgical processing technology.

These results deserve attention, but they must be understood in their proper context. Recovery of a chemical element into solution in a laboratory experiment is not the same as producing a saleable industrial product. A laboratory recovery percentage indicates a chemical process’s potential effectiveness under specific conditions. It does not establish the capital cost of a commercial plant, reagent consumption and cost, the cost of separating the desired element from accompanying impurities, or the price an industrial customer will pay for the finished product. Nor does it establish whether the process can operate continuously and reproducibly on feedstocks whose composition may vary over time. These questions must be answered before laboratory success can translate into commercial production.

Rubidium presents some interesting chemical engineering problems. Its chemical similarity to potassium and cesium complicates separation and purification. A process that dissolves rubidium from a mica concentrate must also contend with the other elements dissolved during leaching. The resulting solution must be treated to separate the desired products and reject impurities, and the final rubidium compound must meet the specifications of its intended customers. The economics of this sequence will depend on mineralogy, extraction efficiency, reagent consumption, recycling, energy requirements, waste management, and the required degree of purification. I would be particularly interested in learning whether Quantum’s proposed process can produce a rubidium compound of commercially acceptable purity without requiring a series of expensive separation and refining operations.

However, another aspect of Quantum’s approach may prove more commercially important than rubidium itself. The company is investigating recovering gallium, and potentially other valuable elements, from the same mineralized material. Gallium has a much more established technological role in semiconductor applications, particularly in gallium arsenide and gallium nitride devices used in communications, power electronics, and other advanced systems. A processing operation that produces several saleable products may have a more attractive economic foundation than one that depends entirely on a single element with a very small market. This possibility deserves serious investigation, but it also introduces additional complexity. Each element must be recovered, separated, purified, and sold. The presence of several critical elements in a mineral deposit does not automatically make the deposit profitable, and the theoretical combined value of those elements cannot be treated as revenue until the company demonstrates that it can produce them economically and sell them into identifiable markets.

Market size matters most for rubidium. If a new producer developed a process capable of producing substantially more rubidium than the current market consumes, it could find itself competing against a demand structure with little ability to absorb additional supply. The price of a specialty chemical is not independent of the quantity offered for sale. In a small market, even a modest increase in production can disproportionately affect prices. This is one reason I believe a serious rubidium development program must begin with an examination of the customers, their product specifications, annual requirements, and the prices they are willing to pay. Only after establishing those facts can you determine the appropriate scale of a processing operation. Building a plant first and searching for customers afterward is not a business strategy that I would recommend.

Quantum Critical Metals therefore offers investors an interesting case study in the distinction between exploration success and the creation of an industrial business. The company has identified mineralization containing elements of technological interest and has begun investigating methods of recovering them. Its next challenge is to demonstrate a reproducible process that can produce qualified products at a cost that allows profitable sales. I would want to see additional metallurgical testing on representative feedstocks, followed by continuous pilot-scale operations that establish recoveries, reagent consumption, product purity, and the overall mass balance. I would also want to see evidence of discussions with prospective industrial customers and, ultimately, qualification testing using actual products from the proposed process. These milestones would tell investors much more about the company’s commercial prospects than additional announcements about rubidium in its mineral deposits.

This offers a broader lesson for the critical minerals industry. Governments can designate elements as critical, and financial markets can assign substantial speculative value to companies that discover them, but neither governments nor financial markets can suspend economic reality. An element becomes commercially important to a producer when a customer needs it in a particular form, purity, quantity, and at a price that lets the producer earn a return on the capital invested. The entire sequence of mining, beneficiation, chemical extraction, separation, refining, and customer qualification must function as an economically sustainable supply chain. A failure at any point in that sequence can render the underlying mineral resource commercially irrelevant.

I believe rubidium is worth watching, not because it is likely to become the next great bulk commodity, but because its specialized applications illustrate the importance of secure supplies of highly purified materials to advanced industrial technologies. Quantum Critical Metals is attempting to determine whether an unconventional mineral source can be converted into a commercially useful supply of rubidium, gallium, and perhaps other critical elements. That is a legitimate industrial objective, but the effort’s success will depend on chemistry, chemical engineering, market development, and economics rather than on designating the contained elements as critical.

For investors, my conclusion is straightforward. Rubidium is technologically important, but its present market is very small. Quantum’s work deserves attention as an attempt to develop a new source of specialty critical materials, particularly if recovering gallium and other products can support the overall economics. The questions that matter are not simply how much rubidium is present or how much can be extracted in a laboratory. They are how much can be produced reproducibly, to what specification, at what cost, and for which customers. Those answers will determine whether Quantum is developing a commercially viable specialty-metals business or merely demonstrating that an interesting collection of chemical elements can be recovered from a mineral deposit.

As I have said many times, follow where value is added. In rubidium, as in so many other critical materials, value will not be established by discovering the element in the ground. It will be established by the ability to transform a mineral occurrence into a qualified industrial product that a customer needs and is willing to purchase at a price that sustains its production.



Ruthenium Prices Double as AI Storage Demand Meets Limited Supply

written by Tracy Hughes | October 25, 2026

Ruthenium has more than doubled in price over the past year, bringing a little-known ingredient in data storage into the critical minerals discussion. Critical Minerals Platform (CMP) reports a 109.43% increase to US$1,780.14 per troy ounce as of October 13, 2026. Its assessment covers 99.95% ruthenium on a global free-on-board basis, and CMP currently rates the metal’s physical supply risk as High.

Ruthenium belongs to the platinum group metals, a family that also includes platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and osmium. Its established uses include electrical contacts, chip resistors, chemical catalysts and coatings for electrodes used in chlorine production. The Royal Society of Chemistry describes its ability to harden platinum and palladium alloys, helping electrical contacts resist wear. Its industrial value often comes from improving the performance of a much larger product with a relatively small amount of metal.

Its connection to AI begins with the physical construction of hard disk drives. Furuya Metal Co., Ltd. (TSE: 7826), a Japanese supplier of precious metal materials, explains that ruthenium is used in the thin films within recording media and magnetic heads. In conventional perpendicular magnetic recording, a ruthenium underlayer helps orient the magnetic grains, supporting higher storage density and reliability. This gives the metal a specific manufacturing role in the equipment that stores data for cloud computing and AI infrastructure.

The demand connection is real, but the overall market is more complicated than an uninterrupted AI growth story. In its May 2026 outlook, Johnson Matthey forecast that data-centre expansion would lift ruthenium demand in hard disks to a five-year high. It nevertheless expected total ruthenium demand to decline by approximately 6%, because weaker chemical-sector consumption would outweigh that growth. A growing technology application can coexist with a shrinking overall market.

Johnson Matthey’s detailed supply and demand balance projects 977,000 troy ounces of primary supply against demand of 1.193 million ounces in 2026. The resulting deficit is 216,000 ounces, approximately 6.7 tonnes or 18% of projected demand. These are forecasts, and the definitions matter: demand is measured after closed-loop recycling and surplus metal sales, while primary supply represents producers’ sales of primary metal. The balance therefore indicates a requirement to draw on market stocks, rather than establishing that industrial orders will necessarily go unfilled.

The geographic exposure is particularly pronounced. Johnson Matthey estimates that South Africa accounts for more than 85% of global primary ruthenium supply, while the International Platinum Group Metals Association identifies smaller contributions from Zimbabwe and Russia. That concentration leaves buyers dependent on a narrow production base. A discussion of global platinum group metal resources can obscure how heavily this particular metal depends on South Africa.

A more recent assessment shows that price pressure persisted into October. Heraeus Precious Metals reported on October 19 that ruthenium had reached record highs during the previous week. It described annual supply of roughly one million ounces and explained that output depends on the economics of the broader platinum group metal basket. Ruthenium is recovered alongside other metals, so a higher ruthenium price alone cannot quickly produce a corresponding increase in mine supply.

That is the structural problem behind the price move. A mine’s investment case depends on the combined value of its production, its costs and its processing capability. A surge in demand for one relatively small component of that output does not automatically allow the operator to increase ruthenium output independently. As CMP puts it in its October briefing, “demand can change faster than supply,” creating pressure on both prices and sourcing.

For an industrial buyer, the practical issue is whether usable material will arrive in the required form and on the required schedule. Furuya’s description of HDD materials emphasizes purity, composition and control of the thin-film structure as factors in performance and reliability. A tonne of material elsewhere in the supply chain cannot automatically replace a qualified input at a factory. That makes processing capability and established supplier relationships part of the supply question.

“What we’re looking at is the industrial market,” Dr. Mark Andrich, CEO of Critical Minerals Platform, explained in a July 28 InvestorNews interview, discussing CMP’s approach to pricing. His emphasis was on the market experienced by producers and industrial buyers. For ruthenium, that is a useful way to read a price assessment: the material specification, delivery terms and date belong alongside the headline number.

CMP’s published methodology describes reference prices developed from information supplied by producers, refiners and industrial consumers, with actual traded volumes included where available. Its US$1,780.14 assessment is consequently a defined reference point, rather than a claim that every buyer paid exactly that amount. Comparing it with another supplier’s quotation requires comparable specifications, timing and delivery terms. Consistency in those terms is essential when measuring how much prices have changed.

Recycling offers one practical response to supply constraints, and it is already an industrial business. Furuya says its Tsuchiura plant has annual ruthenium refining and recycling capacity of 25 to 30 tonnes. The company also describes recovering ruthenium and iridium from spent products and refining them to 99.999% purity. Those figures demonstrate processing capability, but capacity is not the same as actual annual recovery or additional metal available to the market.

The ownership of recovered metal matters as well. The IPA’s ruthenium factsheet explains that much recycling takes place in closed loops, with the original owner retaining the material, while recovering tiny quantities dispersed through finished products is more difficult economically. Such recovery can reduce a customer’s need to buy new metal without creating an equivalent quantity for sale to unrelated buyers. It helps explain why a sophisticated recycling industry can coexist with a tight primary supply balance.

Technology also creates a significant qualification to the AI demand thesis. The same IPA factsheet says heat-assisted magnetic recording, known as HAMR, uses much less ruthenium than established hard-drive technology. Higher storage capacity therefore does not automatically translate into proportionately greater ruthenium consumption. The mix of recording technologies and the quantity of metal required per unit of storage will also shape demand as stored data grows.

That transition is already commercial. Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ: STX) announced in March that its Mozaic 4+ HAMR platform, supporting drives of up to 44 terabytes, was qualified and in production with two leading hyperscale cloud providers. The announcement establishes that new recording technology is reaching major customers, although it does not quantify ruthenium consumption. For the metal’s market, the important question is how quickly growing storage requirements and lower material use per unit offset one another.

At the same time, advanced semiconductor manufacturing is opening another possible source of demand. In July, Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ: LRCX) described collaborative research demonstrating ruthenium wiring lines just 10 nanometres wide. The work illustrates why the metal is being investigated as chip dimensions shrink. It is a technical milestone, however, and does not establish widespread commercial adoption or a measurable new annual market for ruthenium.

Furuya’s own discussion of ruthenium wiring makes that distinction clear. The company has developed and shipped materials for the application, while identifying continuing challenges in processing, cost and mass production. Investors should therefore keep emerging chip applications separate from the established consumption that supports today’s market. The opportunity depends on successful manufacturing adoption, with customers deciding whether the performance benefits justify the expense.

Producer results show how a small metal can become more valuable without dominating the company that sells it. Sibanye Stillwater Limited (JSE: SSW | NYSE: SBSW) reported ruthenium revenue of R1.940 billion for the first half of 2026, compared with R848 million a year earlier. That is an increase of approximately 129%, calculated from its reported figures, but still only about 2.2% of group revenue. An investment in the producer therefore carries exposure to a much broader business than the ruthenium price alone.

For capital markets, the useful questions follow from these differences. How much of a company’s revenue actually comes from ruthenium, and how much can it recover economically from the material it already handles? Does a processor have access to suitable feedstock and customers able to qualify its products? A rising reference price can improve an opportunity, but the financial result depends on recoverable volumes, costs and the terms under which the metal is sold.

Ruthenium’s price surge deserves attention because it exposes how sensitive a small industrial market can become when new demand meets inflexible supply. Its next phase will depend on chemical-sector consumption, changes in storage technology and the recovery of usable metal. AI can increase ruthenium’s importance while engineers simultaneously work to use less of it. That tension makes this a market worth following closely, with equal attention to the manufacturers using the metal and the producers supplying it.

Top 5 Ruthenium Mining Stocks by Market Capitalization

For investors following ruthenium’s price rise, listed mining companies that produce and sell the metal provide a starting point for assessing equity exposure. The five largest companies in this mining-producer ranking are presented in descending order of approximate market capitalization, using October 20, 2026 closing data and expressing all values in US dollars. These valuations cover each company’s entire business, with ruthenium contributing alongside other metals.

  1. PJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel (MOEX: GMKN), known as Nornickel, ranks first with a calculated market capitalization of approximately US$21.6 billion, based on its October 20 Moscow closing price, published share count and the exchange rate for that date. The Russian mining and metals group’s commercial product catalogue includes several grades of ruthenium powder. Its position in the ranking reflects the scale of a broader business that also produces nickel, copper and other precious metals.
  2. Valterra Platinum Limited (JSE: VAL | LSE: VALT) ranks second with a market capitalization of approximately US$19.6 billion. Formerly Anglo American Platinum, the company became an independent listed business following its 2025 demerger from Anglo American. Its operations span mining in South Africa and Zimbabwe, processing, refining and international sales, with ruthenium included among the metals it produces and markets.
  3. Impala Platinum Holdings Limited (JSE: IMP | OTC: IMPUY), known as Implats, holds third place with a market capitalization of approximately US$10.2 billion. Its mining and refining businesses provide exposure to ruthenium through an established platinum-group metals production base. The company’s reported six-metal basket explicitly includes ruthenium alongside platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and gold, demonstrating why investors need to assess the wider metals mix when evaluating its earnings.
  4. Sibanye Stillwater Limited (JSE: SSW | NYSE: SBSW) ranks fourth with a market capitalization of approximately US$7.0 billion. Its South African PGM business provides direct ruthenium exposure within a group that also produces gold and operates precious metals recycling businesses. The company’s separate disclosure of ruthenium revenue allows investors to track the metal’s financial contribution within that diversified portfolio.
  5. Northam Platinum Holdings Limited (JSE: NPH) completes the top five with a market capitalization of approximately US$5.8 billion. Its audited financial statements disclose ruthenium revenue of R2.54 billion for the year ended June 30, 2026, compared with R1.15 billion a year earlier. Ruthenium accounted for approximately 4.7% of Northam’s group revenue during the year, calculated from those statements, illustrating how the metal can make a measurable contribution within a broader mining business.

For more information on Ruthenium, the prices and associated supply chain data, go to CriticalMineralsPlatform.com.



Artificial Intelligence, Critical Minerals, and the Financial Abandonment of American Manufacturing

written by Jack Lifton | October 25, 2026

Why can American financial markets mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars annually for artificial intelligence, a technology whose ultimate profitability remains uncertain, while struggling to finance the reconstruction of industrial capabilities whose necessity is already clear?

I believe that this question goes to the heart of America’s critical minerals crisis. It also exposes a fundamental weakness in the financial system that has come to dominate American industrial policy, corporate management, and capital allocation.

Wall Street has discovered artificial intelligence, and the capital being committed to its development is extraordinary. Reuters reported on October 7, 2026, that the world’s largest technology companies’ combined capital spending plans had risen to more than $730 billion for the year. In June, Morgan Stanley projected that global AI-related debt issuance could approach $570 billion in 2026. These figures measure different aspects of financing and spending, so you can’t add them together, but they illustrate the extraordinary scale of the financial commitment to developing artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency reported in its 2026 Global Critical Minerals Outlook that global investment in critical minerals actually declined by 9% in 2025, ending several years of growth. The same report noted that public financing commitments in advanced economies had reached approximately $65 billion, more than four times the 2023 level. Even so, this figure reflects commitments rather than actual disbursements, and it covers a broad range of critical mineral projects rather than just the processing and manufacturing capabilities I regard as the most important industrial bottlenecks.

The contrast is striking. Financial markets are prepared to finance a technological revolution whose ultimate commercial structure remains uncertain, but they remain reluctant to finance the industrial infrastructure needed to sustain the physical economy on which that revolution depends.

I am not suggesting that artificial intelligence is unimportant. I believe that it will become an increasingly valuable tool in scientific research, engineering, manufacturing, and business management. My concern is that we are once again confusing the creation of financial wealth with the creation of productive industrial capability.

I have spent more than sixty years working in, managing, researching, and observing industrial manufacturing and the technologies that support it. During that time, I have watched the United States transform from the world’s preeminent industrial manufacturing economy into one increasingly dependent on other nations’ industrial output. This transformation was not inevitable. It was the foreseeable consequence of decisions made by corporate management, investors, financial institutions, and governments. Those decisions were generally justified in the name of economic efficiency, but they too often measured efficiency by returns on financial capital rather than a nation’s long-term productive capacity.

What we now call the critical minerals crisis is, in my opinion, a symptom of a much larger problem: the financial abandonment of American industrial manufacturing.

The Extraordinary Difference Between Industrial Importance and Financial Attractiveness

The International Energy Agency has offered a particularly revealing comparison. In its 2026 study of rare earth supply chains, the agency estimated that developing diversified magnet rare earth supply chains outside the dominant supplier, China, would require about $60 billion in investment over the next decade. Nearly half of this investment would go to refining, while about one-third would go to magnet manufacturing.

Consider what this means. The estimated capital required over ten years to substantially diversify the world’s rare-earth magnet supply chain is less than one-tenth of the annual capital spending now being planned by the largest technology companies.

The comparison isn’t exact because the two figures reflect different industrial activities, geographies, and time periods. But the difference in scale is so enormous that it raises a question about our financial system’s priorities.

Why is it relatively easy to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centers, yet so difficult to finance the chemical separation plants, metal production facilities, alloy plants, and magnet factories that underpin the manufacturing of essential electrical and electronic equipment?

The answer is not that the industrial importance of these facilities is uncertain. The IEA estimates that fully implementing China’s expanded rare earth export restrictions could jeopardize as much as $6.5 trillion in annual downstream production outside China. This estimates economic activity exposed to disruption, not a prediction that $6.5 trillion will actually be lost. Nevertheless, it illustrates the extraordinary economic leverage a relatively small number of critical materials and processing capabilities can exert.

We are discussing a potential vulnerability measured in trillions of dollars, whose mitigation may require investments measured in tens of billions.

This is an astonishing imbalance between an industrial capability’s economic importance and financial markets’ willingness to provide the capital needed to establish it.

A rare earth separation plant may be essential to producing thousands of manufactured products, yet it may never offer investors the financial returns expected from a successful artificial intelligence software company. Its value to the national economy may be enormous, while its profitability as an individual enterprise may be relatively modest.

This distinction between industrial importance and financial attractiveness is the central problem that American industrial policy has failed to resolve.

Artificial Intelligence Cannot Replace Industrial Production

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally an information-processing technology. Its economic value will ultimately depend on its ability to improve productivity, reduce costs, accelerate innovation, or create products and services customers will pay for. These are legitimate objectives, and some applications will undoubtedly become enormously valuable.

But artificial intelligence does not eliminate the physical requirements of industrial civilization.

A computer cannot manufacture an electric motor without copper, steel, insulation, and, in many applications, rare earth permanent magnets. It cannot produce a semiconductor without highly purified and precisely engineered materials. It cannot construct an electrical transmission system without conductors, transformers, and the industrial facilities required to manufacture them. It cannot build a factory without machinery, nor can it replace the chemical engineering, metallurgy, process development, and manufacturing experience required to produce materials consistently at commercial scale.

Artificial intelligence may help engineers design improved chemical separation systems. It may optimize an existing metallurgical plant’s operation. It may help identify process inefficiencies and accelerate materials research. But engineers must still demonstrate the resulting improvements in physical equipment, using actual feedstocks, under conditions that can be reproduced economically in commercial production.

The expansion of artificial intelligence may increase demand for many critical materials whose supply chains are already fragile. Data centers require enormous investments in electrical generation and distribution, cooling equipment, transformers, conductors, and electronic components. Advanced semiconductors require highly specialized materials and extraordinarily sophisticated manufacturing equipment. The physical infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence is not virtual. It is an industrial system.

It is therefore ironic that the United States is prepared to invest so heavily in artificial intelligence while remaining dependent on foreign industrial systems for much of the equipment and material inputs required to support it.

We should ask ourselves whether the United States is becoming a nation that designs the future but must purchase the materials and machinery needed to build it from someone else.

The Financialization of American Industry

The decline of American manufacturing did not begin with China’s emergence as an industrial superpower. It began when American corporate management increasingly treated manufacturing as a cost center rather than the nation’s fundamental source of economic strength.

Beginning in the latter part of the twentieth century, financial performance became the dominant measure of corporate success. Companies moved manufacturing overseas when it reduced costs and improved reported margins. Companies abandoned capital-intensive businesses for those promising higher returns on invested capital. Industrial research, process development, and training skilled manufacturing workers increasingly became expenditures to minimize rather than investments in future competitiveness.

The financial markets rewarded these decisions. A corporation that closed an American factory and purchased its output from a lower-cost foreign supplier could report improved profitability. Its shareholders benefited, at least in the short term. But the national economy lost not only the factory but also the accumulated knowledge, supplier relationships, technical workforce, and manufacturing experience that had made the factory possible.

These losses were cumulative. Once a manufacturing industry disappears, its supporting industries begin to disappear with it. Eventually, even if the final product can be designed domestically, the materials, components, production equipment, and qualified personnel needed to manufacture it may no longer be available.

This is precisely what has happened in important portions of the American critical materials supply chain.

China, meanwhile, followed a different course. For roughly a quarter of a century, and in some industries longer, it has pursued industrial policies designed to establish and maintain domestic capabilities across entire manufacturing supply chains. These policies have not always been economically efficient by Western financial standards. They have involved subsidies, excess capacity, financial losses, and considerable waste. But they have also produced something that the American financial system has consistently undervalued: industrial capability.

China did not establish its dominant position in rare earths simply by mining rare earth ores. It developed the chemical separation, metal production, alloy manufacturing, magnet fabrication, and downstream manufacturing capabilities required to convert those ores into industrial products. The resulting advantage is not merely one of access to natural resources. It is an advantage in the organization, integration, experience, and scale of industrial production.

You can’t overcome that advantage simply by discovering more mineral deposits or financing more mines.

The Critical Minerals Crisis Is Real. Much of the Investment Promotion Is Not.

This brings me to a question investors should ask more often. Is America’s critical minerals crisis a genuine threat to the national economy, or is it simply another temporary investment promotion amplified by Wall Street speculators seeking to profit from public anxiety?

My answer is that the industrial problem is entirely real, but much of the financial promotion surrounding it is speculative.

The International Energy Agency’s findings support the seriousness of the underlying problem. Its 2026 outlook reported that geographic concentration in critical mineral refining had increased, notwithstanding efforts to diversify production. It also found that investment outside the dominant producing countries remained disproportionately concentrated in mining rather than in refining and downstream manufacturing.

In the rare earth industry, the IEA projected that existing and announced diversified refining capacity would be only about two-thirds of expected mined supply by 2035, while planned magnet production would be only about one-third. These are projections based on announced projects, not guarantees of future production. But they demonstrate the same structural imbalance that I have been describing for years.

We are investing in the discovery and extraction of critical minerals without making corresponding investments in the industrial processes necessary to transform those minerals into useful materials.

A material can be critical to an industrial process, but a company claiming to possess a critical mineral resource is not automatically a good investment. The two propositions are not interchangeable.

A mineral deposit does not become a commercially useful source of a critical material merely because its owners announce that it contains elements appearing on a government critical minerals list. The deposit must be mined economically. Its valuable minerals must be recovered and concentrated. The concentrate must be chemically processed. The desired elements must be separated, purified, and converted into the chemical or metallic forms industrial customers require. Those products must meet specifications, be reproducible at commercial scale, and be offered at prices customers can afford.

And, most importantly, there must be customers.

I have repeatedly argued that critical materials supply chains should be designed backward from the requirements of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The final industrial customer determines what material is needed, in what form, at what purity, in what quantity, and at what price. Everything upstream must be organized to satisfy those requirements.

Wall Street frequently reverses this process. It begins with a mineral deposit, assigns an assumed future value to its contained elements, and builds a financial narrative that treats the resource’s existence as evidence of an inevitable commercial opportunity. Government concern about foreign dependence then becomes a convenient justification for attracting investment capital.

In too many cases, the result is not an industrial supply chain. Instead, it creates a publicly traded security.

Some companies are developing real industrial capabilities, and some will become essential participants in the reconstruction of American manufacturing. But distinguishing these companies from promotional ventures requires technical, commercial, and financial due diligence, not enthusiasm about the geopolitical importance of an element.

The crisis is real. The investment opportunities being advertised as solutions to it require individual examination.

Who Will Finance the Survival of an Essential Industrial Company?

The United States government has recognized the strategic danger of dependence on foreign critical materials. It has introduced financial support programs, direct investments, procurement commitments, and other mechanisms intended to encourage domestic production.

But recognition is not a solution.

Government support for a mine, a refinery, or a magnet factory does not automatically create an economically sustainable supply chain. Industrial manufacturing requires sustained demand, reliable feedstock, qualified production processes, skilled workers, and customers willing to pay prices that cover production costs.

If an American producer must compete with a foreign supplier whose costs are lower because of greater scale, accumulated technical experience, government support, or an established industrial ecosystem, the American producer may be unable to survive without some form of continuing assistance.

This raises an uncomfortable question. Who will finance an essential American industrial producer’s survival until its customers are prepared to pay enough to sustain it?

The answer cannot simply be that the government will provide another grant. Grants may finance construction, but they do not necessarily finance commercial survival. Nor can we assume that investors will indefinitely accept inadequate returns merely because a company’s products are strategically important.

The IEA’s $65 billion in public financing commitments shows that governments are increasingly prepared to intervene. But public commitments are not the same as money actually disbursed, and disbursed money is not the same as a commercially operating, qualified industrial facility.

I believe government policy should focus on establishing and maintaining specific industrial capabilities whose absence creates measurable economic or national security risks. When private investment falls short, carefully structured long-term procurement agreements, customer commitments, and other support may be necessary to bridge the gap between initial production and commercial sustainability.

But such support should be tied to demonstrated technical capability, achievable production milestones, customer qualification, and realistic operating economics. Government money should not suspend economic reality.

The objective must be to create functioning industrial enterprises, not to guarantee financial returns to their promoters.

The Real Difference Between AI Investment and Industrial Investment

The extraordinary flow of capital into artificial intelligence is not evidence that investors have become more willing to accept long-term industrial risks. It may demonstrate exactly the opposite.

AI investors anticipate enormous future markets, potentially high margins, and scalable returns. Software and intellectual property can sometimes be replicated and distributed at costs far below those required to reproduce a physical manufacturing facility. Although AI infrastructure is extremely capital-intensive, the industry’s financial expectations rest largely on the possibility of very large future revenues and profits.

Critical materials processing offers a different proposition. Chemical separation plants, metal production facilities, alloy plants, and other industrial operations require substantial capital investment, lengthy development periods, technical qualification, and continuous operational discipline. Markets often set their prices through industrial purchasing departments rather than consumer enthusiasm. Their margins may be modest, and customers often demand price reductions as production volumes rise.

These are precisely the kinds of businesses that financialization has made relatively unattractive in American industry.

The growing reliance on borrowed capital to finance artificial intelligence introduces another element of risk. Morgan Stanley’s projection of nearly $570 billion in AI-related debt issuance for 2026 illustrates credit markets’ willingness to finance anticipated future demand. More recently, reports of increased scrutiny of AI-related borrowing suggest lenders are beginning to question whether expected revenues will justify the capital already committed.

There is nothing inherently wrong with borrowing to finance productive investment. But debt must ultimately be serviced from cash flow, and an investment’s economic success cannot be established merely by the availability of borrowed money.

The contrast with critical materials is revealing. A separation plant with identified industrial customers, a proven process, and a measurable contribution to supply security may struggle to obtain financing because its projected financial returns are inadequate. An AI infrastructure venture may obtain financing based on expectations of future demand that have not yet been demonstrated.

The financial markets are not necessarily irrational in making these distinctions. Their responsibility is to evaluate risk and return for investors and lenders. But individual investors’ interests are not necessarily identical to the nation’s long-term economic interests.

A nation cannot assume that the industries most essential to its economic security will also offer the highest returns on capital.

Can America Become a Manufacturing Power Again?

I do not believe that the United States must become self-sufficient in every critical mineral, metal, or material. Such an objective would be economically unrealistic and, in many cases, unnecessary. International trade among reliable partners can provide supply security without requiring every nation to duplicate every industrial capability.

But a substantial difference exists between participating in an internationally diversified industrial supply chain and becoming dependent on a single foreign industrial system for materials essential to the functioning of the national economy.

The United States should seek to restore its ability to compete in manufacturing strategically and economically important products, whether for domestic consumption or export. Achieving this objective requires more than reopening mines. It requires rebuilding selected processing, refining, metalmaking, alloying, component manufacturing, and final assembly capabilities.

Another problem is too often overlooked. Even if America rebuilds its rare-earth magnet manufacturing industry, that achievement will not automatically restore domestic production of the motors, actuators, generators, electronic assemblies, and finished products that use those magnets. Much of that downstream manufacturing has also moved overseas.

A domestically manufactured magnet has limited value to reconstructing American manufacturing if the American factory that once used it no longer exists.

This is why I regard the critical minerals crisis as part of the larger problem of American deindustrialization. The ultimate objective is not to produce critical minerals for their own sake. It is to produce the materials and components a competitive manufacturing economy requires.

The United States still possesses extraordinary scientific, engineering, entrepreneurial, and financial resources. What it lacks is a coherent system for converting those resources into sustained industrial production in sectors where immediate financial returns may be inadequate.

Industrial experience is cumulative. Years of production, process improvement, failure analysis, and customer interaction develop the ability to operate a chemical separation plant, manufacture a high-performance alloy, or produce a qualified permanent magnet. You don’t acquire it by purchasing equipment and hiring consultants.

Rebuilding an industrial capability takes time and effort to develop the knowledge, infrastructure, and workforce that were allowed to disappear.

That is why I am skeptical of claims that America’s critical materials dependence can be resolved quickly, no matter how much money Washington makes available.

Is the Critical Minerals Crisis Fading, or Is Wall Street Simply Losing Interest?

Financial markets have short attention spans. A crisis becomes an investment theme; the investment theme attracts promoters; the promoters attract capital; and eventually another opportunity captures the market’s imagination.

Today, that opportunity is artificial intelligence.

The IEA’s reported decline in global critical minerals investment does not mean every critical mineral sector is contracting. For example, copper investment rose in 2025, while lithium and several battery-related sectors fell sharply. The industry is not homogeneous, and neither are its investment prospects.

Nevertheless, the overall decline in investment, combined with the continued concentration of processing capacity and the extraordinary scale of AI financing, raises a legitimate concern about capital allocation.

It would be a serious mistake to interpret declining investor enthusiasm for critical minerals as evidence that the underlying industrial problem has been solved. American manufacturers’ dependence on foreign supplies of critical processed materials does not disappear just because investors have found a more exciting sector.

Indeed, the expansion of artificial intelligence may intensify the problem by increasing demand for electrical equipment, energy infrastructure, specialized materials, and manufacturing capacity.

The artificial intelligence boom may also hit the industrial economy’s physical limits. Capital can buy equipment and materials only if someone can produce them. A shortage of industrial capability cannot always be solved by raising prices. New production facilities still require time, technical expertise, qualification, and access to their own upstream supply chains.

The laws of chemistry, metallurgy, and economics do not change because the financial markets have discovered a new technology.

The Question America Must Answer

I began by asking why our financial markets can mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars for artificial intelligence while struggling to finance industrial capabilities whose necessity has already been established.

I believe the answer is that our financial system has become extraordinarily effective at directing capital toward opportunities promising high financial returns, but it lacks an equally effective mechanism for directing capital toward industrial capabilities whose value to the national economy may far exceed their profitability as individual enterprises.

The critical minerals crisis is not fading. What may be fading is the financial market’s interest in solving it.

Speculation around critical minerals has certainly been real. Some companies have used legitimate national security concerns to promote projects with doubtful commercial prospects. Some investors have confused geological resources with industrial products, and some government programs have failed to distinguish technical capability from promotional ambition.

But none of this invalidates the underlying industrial problem.

The International Energy Agency’s estimate of $60 billion in required investment to diversify rare-earth magnet supply chains, compared with as much as $6.5 trillion in annual downstream production potentially exposed to Chinese export restrictions, provides a particularly powerful illustration of the economic stakes. The disparity does not mean that every proposed project deserves financing, or that $60 billion alone would eliminate every supply-chain vulnerability. It means the economic consequences of failing to develop essential industrial capabilities can far outweigh the cost of doing so.

The United States has created a financial system that rewarded abandoning manufacturing when it improved short-term returns. We now ask that same system to finance the restoration of manufacturing, even when the required investments promise lower returns, longer development periods, and greater operational risks than alternative uses of capital.

Why should we expect it to behave differently?

The fundamental question facing America is therefore not whether we can find enough critical minerals, or even whether we can raise enough capital to process them. The question is whether a nation whose financial system has rewarded abandoning manufacturing can rebuild a competitive industrial economy without first changing that system’s incentives.

I do not believe it can.

This does not mean that artificial intelligence should receive less investment simply because critical materials require more. It means private financial markets cannot solely determine America’s industrial future. If certain manufacturing capabilities are essential to economic and national security, public policy, industrial customers, and financial institutions must develop mechanisms to sustain them until they can operate competitively.

We must also acknowledge that some strategically essential capabilities may never produce the returns speculative financial markets demand. Their value may lie in the industrial activity they enable rather than the profits they generate directly.

Until we confront that distinction, the critical minerals crisis will remain unresolved, regardless of how many mines are announced, how many government grants are awarded, or how many speculative fortunes are created.

Artificial intelligence may become one of this century’s most important technological developments. It may also become one of the greatest speculative financial episodes in modern history. Those possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

But if artificial intelligence eventually enables America to design extraordinary new products that it must then ask other nations to manufacture, we will have achieved something remarkable indeed: the ability to imagine an industrial future that we no longer possess the industrial capacity to build.

A nation cannot remain an industrial superpower by financing product imagination while abandoning the capacity to manufacture them.

Follow where value is added.



The Government Can Set the Price of Rare Earths. It Cannot Set Their Value.

written by Jack Lifton | October 25, 2026

In a Financial Times commentary published on October 8, 2026, economist Mohamed El-Erian examines the United States Treasury’s growing willingness to intervene directly in financial markets to achieve political and economic objectives. He cites the Argentine peso, American Treasury bond yields, and the Japanese yen. His underlying argument is that government intervention can succeed when it aligns with economic fundamentals, but can fail, sometimes spectacularly, when political objectives replace those fundamentals. I believe El-Erian’s analysis applies directly to the current American effort to rebuild a domestic critical minerals industry, particularly the attempt to establish a non-Chinese rare earth supply chain. Indeed, I think the consequences of government intervention in critical minerals pricing may ultimately matter more for American manufacturing than the financial market interventions he discusses.

The United States government has entered a new era of economic statecraft in which national security considerations increasingly determine capital allocation. The federal government is no longer content simply to regulate, tax, subsidize, or purchase industrial products. It is becoming an investor, a lender, a price guarantor, and, in some cases, a preferred customer. It also tries to decide which industries should exist in the United States, how quickly they should develop, and what prices their products should command. The difficulty is that governments can create financial incentives, but they cannot repeal the laws of chemistry, physics, engineering, or economics. For the critical minerals industry, this distinction is fundamental, and I fear that Washington’s current enthusiasm for industrial intervention is obscuring it.

I have argued for years that the American discussion of critical minerals reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the industrial supply chain. A mineral deposit is not a metal, a metal is not necessarily an industrial material, and an industrial material is not a qualified component ready for use by an original equipment manufacturer. The economic value of a mineral deposit is determined not simply by the quantity of an element that it contains, but by the cost of extracting that element, separating it from the other constituents of the deposit, converting it into a useful chemical or metallic form, and ultimately manufacturing a product that a customer can and will purchase. A rare earth deposit may contain substantial quantities of neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium, but unless those elements can be economically recovered, separated, refined, converted into metals and alloys, and incorporated into qualified magnets, the deposit’s theoretical value may have little relationship to its commercial value.

The American government appears increasingly determined to accelerate this process through financial intervention. Its objective is understandable. China dominates the commercial production and processing of rare earths and has developed an industrial infrastructure that the United States allowed to disappear over several decades. But losing that infrastructure was not simply a financial event. It was an industrial and technological event, involving the disappearance of manufacturing capacity, experienced personnel, specialized equipment, customer relationships, and accumulated operating knowledge. Reversing it requires much more than raising raw material prices or subsidizing the market capitalization of companies that claim they intend to restore what was lost.

The clearest example of government intervention in the American rare earth market is the Department of Defense’s July 2025 agreement with MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP). Its price protection agreement establishes a ten-year mechanism based on US$110 per NdPr kilogram equivalent, as defined in the contract, covering eligible neodymium-praseodymium in concentrate, oxide, and metal products. Quarterly government payments compensate MP Materials for the shortfall when the contractual volume-weighted benchmark falls below that threshold, subject to the agreement’s eligibility and calculation provisions. After the specified production milestone associated with the 10X facility, the government is entitled to 30% of the amount by which that quarterly benchmark exceeds US$110 per NdPr kilogram equivalent, applied to eligible volumes. This is not an ordinary commercial supply agreement. It explicitly intervenes in the economics of rare earth production, intended to provide revenue certainty for a strategically important domestic producer.

It is important to distinguish this price floor from a universal American market price. The government has not ordered every American buyer to pay US$110 per NdPr kilogram equivalent. Instead, it has established a contractual financial guarantee for a particular producer, based on a specified benchmark. Nevertheless, the agreement has created a powerful reference point for investors, financiers, and other rare earth companies seeking government support. The government is effectively declaring that the prevailing international price may be inadequate to sustain the domestic industrial capacity it considers essential for national security. That judgment may be correct, but acknowledging its possible validity does not mean the US$110 contractual threshold is the economically correct price for every NdPr product, or that every proposed American rare earth project becomes commercially viable at that price.

China’s rare earth industry did not achieve its dominant position through an ideal free market. It benefited from decades of industrial policy, state directed investment, infrastructure development, technological accumulation, and the concentration of manufacturing demand within China. The resulting prices cannot automatically be treated as those that would prevail in a genuinely competitive global market. The United States can therefore reasonably question whether Chinese quotations adequately reflect the cost of creating and maintaining an independent supply chain. But the appropriate question is not whether the American government can establish a price floor. Clearly it can. The question is whether that floor supports a competitive industry or merely shields selected companies from the consequences of their own operating costs.

Unlike copper, aluminum, or gold, the rare earths are not traded in a deep, liquid, transparent international market with universally accepted exchange prices. China has domestic quotations, export quotations, prices reported by specialist agencies, negotiated contract prices, and increasingly government supported Western pricing arrangements. These are not necessarily interchangeable. A kilogram of dysprosium oxide offered in China is not economically identical to a kilogram of qualified dysprosium metal delivered under a long term contract to an American alloy manufacturer. The difference includes processing costs, logistics, financing, specifications, supply security, and the risk that a shipment may not be licensed for export. Consequently, it is entirely reasonable that an American manufacturer might pay a premium for a dependable non-Chinese supply, but that premium must be understood and justified.

Is the buyer paying for an actual improvement in reliability, quality, and delivery security, or is the buyer being asked to subsidize an inefficient production system that cannot otherwise survive? These are very different propositions. The first represents the commercial value of supply chain security, while the second represents a transfer of wealth from the customer or taxpayer to the producer. The distinction becomes particularly important when governments begin treating prices in their own financial support agreements as evidence of an entire industry’s market value. A government guaranteed price is not proof of an independently sustainable commercial market, and a price established for national security reasons should never be confused with a price discovered through competitive commercial transactions.

I believe that the world is moving toward two increasingly distinct rare earth pricing systems. The first is the China centered industrial market, where the overwhelming concentration of separation, metal making, alloy production, and magnet manufacturing gives China enormous influence over prices and availability. The second is an emerging Western strategic market, where governments and manufacturers will pay premiums for materials produced outside Chinese control. These two markets are not inherently irrational. A secure supply has an economic value that may not be reflected in the lowest available spot quotation. The danger arises when the strategic premium detaches from the actual cost and performance of the alternative supply chain, creating an artificial pricing structure that encourages investment in capacity without showing the capacity can operate competitively.

In a hypothetical example, consider an American producer that requires US$110 per kilogram for a specified NdPr product to cover its costs, while a competing Chinese producer can deliver the same specification on comparable terms for US$70. The illustrative US$40 difference might represent the legitimate cost of maintaining a strategically independent source. It might also represent poor recovery rates, inefficient processing, excessive capital expenditure, inadequate plant utilization, or an uncompetitive business model. The price difference alone cannot tell us which explanation is correct. That requires industrial due diligence, not political enthusiasm. The same question matters even more for dysprosium and terbium, where limited non-Chinese separation capacity, restricted export availability, and relatively small market volumes can drive enormous price volatility. A government supported Western price for a heavy rare earth oxide may provide the revenue certainty needed to finance a separation plant, but it cannot guarantee the purity, recovery, throughput, operating cost, or customer qualification needed for commercial success. Nor does the ability to produce a commercial sample demonstrate the ability to produce commercial quantities profitably.

The United States is trying to rebuild a rare earth supply chain from mining to magnet manufacturing. This is often described as mine-to-magnet integration, as though owning or financing all stages automatically creates a functioning industrial system. It does not. Mining, mineral beneficiation, chemical separation, oxide refining, metal reduction, alloy production, powder metallurgy, magnet manufacturing, and final component qualification are distinct industrial operations. Each has its own capital requirements, technological risks, production economics, and specialized workforce. A company may be exceptionally competent in one stage and entirely inexperienced in another, and the government’s current approach risks confusing financial integration with industrial integration. The real test is whether each operation can consistently produce a material that meets the next operation’s specifications, at the required volume, and at a cost that keeps the finished product competitive.

The ultimate customer is not the mine or the separation plant. It is the manufacturer of an automobile, aircraft, industrial motor, electronic device, or defense system. The supply chain should therefore be designed backward from that customer’s requirements. A manufacturer does not purchase a rare earth deposit. It purchases a component with specified performance, reliability, cost, and delivery characteristics. If the finished component cannot compete in the market, raising the price of the rare earth material used to manufacture it will not solve the problem. It may make the problem worse, especially if the price increase is accompanied by tariffs, domestic content requirements, higher energy costs, and the cost of financing new industrial facilities.

Government directed strategic pricing also raises the question of who bears the cost when domestic mineral prices exceed comparable international quotations. Grants and price support payments can create direct budgetary costs, while loans and equity investments carry financial risks and may also generate repayments or returns. The face value of a loan or investment is therefore not automatically a taxpayer cost; its fiscal consequences depend on financing terms and performance. Manufacturers may instead pay a premium directly, making it part of the finished product’s cost. For a sophisticated industrial component, rare earth content may represent only a small fraction of the selling price, so a substantial rise in an oxide price does not necessarily produce a similarly large rise in the finished product’s price. The potential cost pressure is real, but its effect on manufacturers, consumers, and public budgets depends on how the support is structured and how costs are absorbed.

The economic consequences become more serious if tariffs, domestic content requirements, higher energy costs, higher financing costs, and strategic mineral premiums are imposed simultaneously. The government may then subsidize the production of expensive domestic materials while also increasing the cost of the American manufactured products that would consume them. That would be an extraordinary unintended consequence of a policy intended to restore American manufacturing. It is also important to recognize that the United States no longer manufactures many finished products that Americans purchase and that contain rare earth permanent magnets. Producing additional magnets domestically does not automatically restore the manufacturing of the motors, compressors, generators, actuators, and other components that use them. High domestic magnet prices may discourage those downstream industries from returning if foreign competitors keep buying lower cost magnets and components. Thus, a poorly structured policy to build an American rare earth magnet industry could make it harder to restore the American industries that consume those magnets. This is the central industrial contradiction that Washington must resolve.

Project Vault, announced on February 2, 2026, introduces another dimension to this problem. It is an independently governed public-private partnership establishing a U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve, with EXIM approving a direct loan of up to US$10 billion to support a structure involving original equipment manufacturers and private capital providers. Its demand-driven design uses manufacturers’ purchase commitments to guide stockpiling, rather than relying solely on discretionary government purchases. That commercial participation matters, but financing an emergency inventory does not by itself establish that every supplier’s proposed expansion will be economically sustainable. More generally, a stockpiling program can encourage excess capacity if producers mistake initial inventory purchases for a permanent increase in industrial consumption. I believe the industrial test is whether reserve procurement and subsequent replenishment support productive capacity that can also serve customers at commercially acceptable prices.

Government intervention has another consequence that investors should examine carefully. When a company receives government investment, a price guarantee, a loan, or a purchase commitment, the market may interpret that support as evidence that the company has been selected as a future industry leader, and its share price may rise dramatically. But a government financing decision is not equivalent to a successful technical evaluation, a completed production qualification, or proof of long term profitability. A company can become extremely valuable in the stock market before it has demonstrated that it can manufacture its intended products commercially. The distinction between the value of a company’s securities and the value of its productive industrial assets is becoming increasingly important in the critical minerals sector. Indeed, government intervention may create financial opportunities far more attractive than the underlying industrial development opportunities.

This is not a theoretical concern. When government support raises a commodity’s expected selling price, junior mining companies can incorporate that higher price into their projections of future revenue, discounted cash flow, and theoretical project value. The resulting increase in estimated net present value may occur without any improvement in the deposit, metallurgy, recovery, capital cost, operating cost, or probability of actually reaching production. An increase in an assumed selling price is not a technological achievement. Investors must therefore distinguish between a project that becomes viable because its operating economics have improved and one that appears viable only because its financial model assumes a government supported price. They must also ask whether the support is legally committed to the company in question or merely inferred from a government agreement with somebody else. A contractual floor of US$110 per NdPr kilogram equivalent for one producer does not entitle every prospective producer to the same protection.

El-Erian’s discussion of government intervention in currency and bond markets offers a useful framework for understanding the risks now developing in critical minerals. Intervention is most likely to succeed when it addresses a clearly identified market failure, has sufficient resources behind it, and remains consistent with the market’s underlying economics. It is less likely to succeed when it attempts to impose a politically desirable outcome upon economic conditions that cannot sustain it. Applied to rare earths, this means government assistance may be justified to overcome the enormous initial costs of rebuilding an industrial capability with strategic value that cannot attract sufficient private investment under current market conditions. There is a legitimate argument for financing separation plants, metal making facilities, alloy production, and magnet manufacturing when the private market undervalues their national security benefit. There is also a legitimate argument for temporary price protection against predatory pricing or deliberate supply manipulation. But such assistance must have an industrial objective and a measurable standard of success.

The objective should be to establish competitive productive capability, not to maintain the market capitalization of a politically favored company. The government should ask how much qualified material a facility can produce, what it costs to manufacture, who will buy it, and how quickly the facility can reduce its dependence on public support. Those are industrial questions, and announcing another multibillion dollar financing program cannot answer them. Nor can they be answered by assuming that every mineral deposit containing a strategically important element must be developed into a vertically integrated industrial enterprise. Such an approach ignores the historical development of successful manufacturing industries, which have depended upon specialization, economies of scale, technical competence, and reliable commercial relationships among suppliers and customers.

I believe American critical minerals policy should begin by identifying the specific industrial capabilities whose absence creates unacceptable national security risks. For rare earth permanent magnets, these include reliable separation of the required rare earths, production of metals and alloys to specification, magnet manufacturing, and qualification by the industries that use the magnets. The government should then determine which capabilities commercial demand can support and which require a continuing strategic premium. Where a premium is necessary, it should be explicit, measurable, and justified by the value of the security being purchased. Government assistance should favor demonstrated technical competence, realistic capital budgets, independently verified operating costs, and credible customers. It should not be distributed primarily based on a mineral resource’s size, the promotional appeal of a business plan, or the political influence of a company’s sponsors.

I would particularly favor supporting specialized processing companies that can serve multiple customers rather than requiring every mining venture to build its own complete processing and manufacturing system. The historical success of industrial economies has depended upon specialization, scale, and the accumulation of technical expertise, and there is no reason to assume that rare earths are exempt from these principles. The United States should also recognize that an economically viable supply chain need not be entirely domestic. Reliable production in allied countries can support American industrial security, provided contractual obligations, export policies, and industrial capabilities are sufficiently dependable. The goal should be supply security and competitive manufacturing, not the political symbolism of locating every operation within American borders.

I return to the question that I believe should govern every investment in critical minerals: Who is the customer? I do not mean the government agency providing a grant, the investment bank arranging financing, the brokerage firm promoting the shares, or the investors hoping for a higher stock price. I mean the industrial customer that needs the material, in what form, at what specification, in what quantity, and at what price. If that customer does not exist, or if the customer can purchase an equivalent qualified product elsewhere at a substantially lower total cost, then the proposed investment requires a very careful explanation. National security may justify paying more for an assured supply, but it does not justify ignoring the difference between a commercially useful product and an expensive demonstration of technical possibility.

Domestic separation alone does not establish a complete rare earth magnet supply chain, although some oxides already have direct industrial uses, such as cerium oxide in glass polishing. For magnet rare earths, strategic value also depends on dependable downstream conversion into metals, alloys, and qualified magnets that manufacturers can use. The broader principle applies to lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, tungsten, gallium, germanium, and every other material on the government’s expanding lists of critical minerals. Those lists identify potential vulnerabilities. They do not establish viable markets or commercially acceptable prices, and they certainly do not guarantee that a company with a mineral resource can turn it into a profitable industrial business.

Mohamed El-Erian is warning that repeated government intervention in financial markets can undermine the credibility of the institutions conducting those interventions when political objectives conflict with economic reality. I believe the same warning applies, even more strongly, to the American critical minerals industry. The United States has legitimate reasons to reduce its dependence on China for strategically important materials, and those reasons may justify expenditures that ordinary commercial calculations alone would not warrant. But the nation must understand what it is purchasing. Is it purchasing a temporary supply of materials, financing a permanent industrial capability, compensating a producer for the additional cost of supply chain security, or simply transferring public money to investors in enterprises that may never become commercially competitive? These objectives are not interchangeable, and confusing them will lead to costly mistakes.

If government intervention is to succeed, the financial structure must serve the industrial objective, not the other way around. A price guarantee can support a factory, but it cannot make an inefficient factory efficient. A government loan can finance equipment, but it cannot make that equipment operate successfully. A tariff can raise the cost of imports, but it cannot create a qualified domestic alternative where none exists. A government investment can increase a company’s share price without increasing its ability to produce anything. The restoration of American critical minerals production is an industrial undertaking, not a financial market exercise, and its success will ultimately be measured not by the amount of public money committed or the valuations assigned to favored companies, but by the quantity, quality, reliability, and competitiveness of the materials that American industry can actually obtain.

The government can establish the price it is willing to pay for strategic independence. Only a functioning industrial economy can determine what that independence actually costs. Policymakers, financiers, and investors ignore this distinction at their peril, because governments and financial markets cannot suspend economic reality. Industrial policy should restore the capacity to create economic value, not manufacture financial valuations through political decisions. If the United States succeeds in rebuilding a competitive critical minerals industry, it will be because it has restored the industrial skills, technologies, production facilities, and customer relationships that make such an industry possible, not because Washington has decreed what rare earths ought to be worth.

And the final lesson, as always, is to follow where value is added.



Ucore Advances Louisiana Rare Earth Separation with Expanded Defense Funding

written by InvestorNews | October 25, 2026

“We can now see that commercial window ahead of us,” said Pat Ryan, P.Eng., Chairman and CEO of Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSXV: UCU | OTCQX: UURAF). Speaking with InvestorNews host Jack Lifton, Ryan outlined the company’s move toward commercial rare earth separation at its Louisiana Strategic Metals Complex in Alexandria. The immediate priority is Enhanced Machine A, with installation, testing and commissioning targeted for the first half of 2027.

Ucore announced an additional US$4.6 million from the U.S. Department of War on September 14 for samarium and gadolinium process development and deployment of Enhanced Machine A. The award brings total grant funding under its U.S. government agreement to US$27 million. Ryan linked the government’s interest in samarium to defense and aerospace applications where samarium-cobalt magnets must retain performance at high temperatures.

Ucore is concentrating on the separation stage that connects mixed rare earth feedstocks with metal, alloy and magnet manufacturers. “It’s not about the rocks; it’s about the chemistry,” Ryan said. RapidSX applies established solvent extraction chemistry through modular equipment that can be configured for different feedstocks and product requirements.

At its Kingston, Ontario, facility, Ucore has reported 99.5% neodymium-praseodymium material and 99.9% dysprosium oxide for customer qualification. These samples allow prospective buyers to evaluate the products against their manufacturing specifications. Producing suitable samples is a step toward commercial agreements, with customers still needing to establish quality, consistency and suitability for their processes.

Ryan is looking beyond the immediate buyer when making those decisions. “If you’re a magnet maker, what does your customer look like beyond you?” he asked, pointing to motor and drivetrain manufacturers. Understanding those requirements should help Ucore determine which products to make and how to allocate the limited output available during the early stages of production.

The company’s collaboration with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas supports feedstock sourcing for Louisiana and downstream customer development, including in Japan. Ryan said the relationship had introduced feedstocks from the Far East, while Ucore was also working with material from South America. Testing in Kingston helps establish the processing routes needed to turn those materials into products customers can evaluate.

Ryan said the Louisiana equipment is being built and assembled in the United States using components available in the U.S. market. Orders include reactors, switchgear and chillers, alongside the columns, pumps and controls required for the separation system. The modular approach is central to how he intends to expand the operation. “It’s scalable. It’s modular. You can build it in pieces,” he said.

Ucore also raised C$69 million in gross proceeds through an August public offering, with net proceeds intended for Louisiana development, working capital and general corporate purposes. Commissioning and customer qualification remain essential steps toward commercial deliveries. Ryan’s objective is direct: “Let’s get specified product that people are going to buy and move down through the supply stream from there.”

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DMG Moves Toward a Long Term AI Business at Christina Lake

written by InvestorNews | October 25, 2026

DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. (TSXV: DMGI | OTCQB: DMGGF) is pursuing a proposed 50-megawatt AI colocation tenancy at its Christina Lake data center in British Columbia. Its June 1 letter of intent outlines an initial 12-year agreement, with three potential five-year renewals. If finalized, the transaction would move the facility from its existing Bitcoin mining operations toward hosting a customer’s AI computing equipment.

The letter of intent specifies recurring monthly charges and annual increases, but the announcement does not disclose their dollar values. It also provides for the prospective tenant to supply an investment-grade financial backstop for DMG to review. The tenant was not named, and the principal commercial provisions are non-binding. Completion therefore depends on negotiating and executing a definitive agreement.

In its September 14 project update, DMG reported that Christina Lake had 75 MW of contracted power. This comprises 15 MW of firm power and 60 MW of non-firm, or curtailable, power. The company said its existing substation supports that total, while the proposed 50 MW tenancy refers specifically to critical IT load.

The September update also reported contracts for two separate fiber routes and an application to expand the existing building. DMG said the proposed addition could support as much as 60 MW of critical IT load. The company revised its expected schedule for energizing tenant servers to 2027, with the conversion still subject to financing, permitting and agreements with the necessary counterparties.

DMG said it was discussing financing with multiple financial institutions and evaluating rated bonds, lines of credit, equity and convertible debt. Its stated objective was to balance financing cost, flexibility and speed while minimizing shareholder dilution. That disclosure describes financing options under consideration; it does not establish that funding has been secured.

Alongside the larger proposed tenancy, DMG has announced smaller steps into secure computing. In April, the company reported receiving 2 MW of prefabricated data center units, which it described as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF-rated, infrastructure. Its June 16 announcement disclosed a colocation contract valued at approximately $670,000 over slightly more than two years, with expected AI workloads and an option for future SCIF services. That announcement did not identify the customer.

DMG’s July 16 announcement also disclosed an investment in Atomic47 Labs Inc., a Kelowna company developing applied AI systems for regulated industries. DMG’s quarterly financial statements record a C$200,000 payment to Atomic47 on June 17 under a simple agreement for future equity. DMG described the investment as part of its strategy to develop secure Canadian sovereign AI infrastructure.

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Why I Coined the Term Technology Metals

written by Jack Lifton | October 25, 2026

I had been working with rare metals for 45 years when, in 2007, I coined the term technology metals. The name explains why manufacturers need these materials and why investors should understand them. Their electronic, magnetic, optical and chemical properties help determine what a device can do. Understanding that relationship is the most useful place to begin a discussion of their value.

There is a second meaning in the name, and few people grasp it: without the technology, you don’t have the metals. A deposit in the ground is not a supply of neodymium or dysprosium until someone has the process technology to separate, refine and convert it into a form a manufacturer can use. For decades, I have explained that this business is more technology than mining. It is an idea that still surprises many investors and policymakers, and it is one of the main reasons I chose the term.

My perspective came from the laboratory and the factory. I began my career in 1962 at Energy Conversion Devices in Detroit, working under Stanford Ovshinsky on purified metals, compounds and alloys for electronics and energy storage. Subsequent work at ITT involved materials and deposition processes for military night-vision devices. In those environments, an element’s name was only the beginning of the discussion. What mattered was whether we could prepare a material with the properties, purity and consistency required for the device to function.

In the 1970s, that practical education extended to catalytic-converter substrates and coatings. The platinum-group metals used in automotive catalysts illustrate the distinction particularly well. Platinum, palladium and rhodium acquire their industrial usefulness through the way they are prepared and incorporated into a catalyst system.

A description such as precious metal tells us something about their market category, but a manufacturer needs to understand how they perform. My later years running industrial businesses reinforced the same lesson through the demands of production and customers.

By the time I began writing and speaking widely about these markets, the familiar expression minor metals seemed inadequate to the discussion I wanted to have. In a January 2009 interview, I explained my choice directly: “I don’t call them minor; I refer to them as the technology metals.” A small market measured in tonnes can support a much larger market in finished goods. Calling attention to the technological function helps explain why the loss of a relatively modest quantity of material can have consequences far beyond the value of the material itself.

In August 2010, Tracy Hughes and I visited the Bokan Mountain project in Alaska, owned by Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSXV: UCU | OTCQX: UURAF). Tracy recalls a conversation on that trip about how she planned to market the sector. She had been considering strategic materials or strategic metals, the terms the industry commonly used at the time, but she didn’t like either one. She remembers me suggesting critical metals and technology metals instead. I was already using the latter to link these materials to their applications. Apparently, she bought www.technologymetals.com that same day, and she tells me we co-own it…

The distinction between those terms is useful. The terms strategic and critical were already established in government discussions of materials security long before my career began; both appear in a 1939 statement by the U.S. Army and Navy Munitions Board. Today, the U.S. Geological Survey’s explanation of critical minerals connects their economic or national-security importance with vulnerability to supply disruption. Technology metals describes the function that creates the need for the material. The same metal can fit all of these descriptions, because they address different aspects of its importance.

For publishers explaining these markets, the technological connection is particularly valuable. It gives an investor a reason to follow an unfamiliar element beyond an exploration announcement or a price quotation. Understanding the device that uses the material leads naturally to questions about the required chemical form, the potential customer and the production process. Those questions make the connection between scientific possibility and a business that can sell a product.

I also co-founded Technology Metals Research in 2010. Its work brought together exploration, processing and end-use analysis for people trying to understand these markets.

The expression was already in use, and the company’s name reflected that perspective. The important task was to follow a material through the successive industries that would have to handle it before it reached a customer.

Rare earths offer a particularly clear example. A conventional production route for neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets includes recovering rare earths from a suitable feedstock, producing oxides to specification, converting them into metals, preparing alloys and manufacturing the magnet. Each operation requires its own equipment and expertise. Progress at one stage has to be matched by the ability of the next stage to accept and use its output. Other rare earth applications require compounds with different properties, so the processing route must follow the requirements of the intended product.

Customer qualification adds another practical test. A potential supplier must establish that its product works in the customer’s application and can be delivered consistently. The progression from development samples through automotive qualification to commercial shipments, described in a recent permanent-magnet manufacturing announcement, shows how distinct those milestones are. For someone accustomed to manufacturing, the customer’s acceptance is a central part of the development process. It belongs in the assessment of a venture from the beginning.

This is also why I pay close attention to processing innovations. A method that improves recovery, reduces reagent consumption or produces a more consistent material can change the commercial prospects of a supply chain. Its value depends on demonstrating those improvements under conditions relevant to production. The assessment must include the cost of operating the process and the ability to sell what it makes. Laboratory success is an essential step, but industrial development requires us to show that it can be repeated economically.

The production rate matters as much as the resource. In that 2009 interview, I was already discussing the amount of material industry could actually produce in a year. A factory has a delivery schedule, and the raw-material potential of a deposit cannot by itself meet it. Supply must arrive in the required form and quantity when the customer needs it. This is the commercial discipline that I believe should guide investment in technology metals, from the development of resources through the manufacture of components.

These are the issues I will take to Seoul for Metal Events’ 22nd International Rare Earths Conference, held October 27–29, 2026, at the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square. I will attend with Arlington Innovation Partners, whose Advisory Board I have just joined. On October 29, I will speak about new and newly applied process technologies that can improve the efficiency and economics of rare earth production. That subject carries the industrial meaning of technology metals into the work of building reliable supply chains, because meeting manufacturers’ needs requires understanding how materials become products.

Nearly two decades after I introduced the term, I still find it useful because it keeps the application and the customer in view. That is where a credible industrial plan has to end, with a manufacturer receiving a material it can use and a supplier able to keep producing it. The capabilities we expect from modern technology depend on making that relationship work.