April 23, 2026 — TORONTO, ONTARIO — As capital intensifies its search for credible rare earths exposure outside of China, the conversation is shifting from resource size to something far more determinative: grade, metallurgy, and the ability to process.

Against this backdrop, Mark Tory, President, CEO & Director of Defense Metals Corp. (TSXV: DEFN | OTCQB: DFMTF), will present at CMI Summit 5: “The New Critical Minerals Economy,” taking place May 13–14, 2026, at the Historic National Club in Toronto.

Mr. Tory’s presentation, titled “How to Analyze a Rare Earths Project,” is scheduled for Day 1 (Wednesday, May 13) from 10:40–10:55 AM, and will focus on the technical and economic criteria that distinguish viable rare earths projects from the broader field of exploration-stage assets.

The session builds on a recent InvestorNews interview — “Defense Metals’ Mark Tory on Why Rare Earths Grade and Processing Technology Matters” (click here) — where Mr. Tory emphasized a central industry reality: while many deposits may appear similar at a headline level, the ultimate success of a rare earth project is determined by concentrate quality and the complexity of downstream processing.

Mark Tory commented:
“The rare earth sector is separating into two categories — projects that can produce a saleable, high-grade concentrate with manageable metallurgy, and those that cannot. That distinction is ultimately what determines whether a project attracts capital and moves into production. At Wicheeda, our focus is not just on the resource, but on demonstrating a viable pathway through processing — because that is where the real bottleneck, and the real value, exists.”

At a time when governments and institutional investors are prioritizing the development of domestic and allied supply chains, this distinction is becoming increasingly material. Projects capable of producing high-grade concentrates with favorable metallurgy are emerging as the most credible candidates to advance through feasibility, permitting, and ultimately into production.

Defense Metals Corp. is advancing its Wicheeda Rare Earth Element Project in British Columbia, one of the more advanced undeveloped rare earth deposits in North America. The Company is focused on delivering strategically critical rare earth elements to Western supply chains spanning defense, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy technologies.

Jack Lifton, Co-Chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), added:
“The rare earth sector has moved beyond the question of who has a deposit to who can actually process material into separated products. Metallurgy is now the gatekeeper. Understanding that distinction is essential for investors, and it is precisely why technical discussions like Mark Tory’s are so important at this stage of the market.”

CMI Summit 5 will convene senior executives, policymakers, institutional investors, and technical experts to address the evolving realities of the critical minerals sector — with a particular emphasis on supply chain control, processing capability, and capital allocation in a geopolitically fragmented market.

Mr. Tory’s inclusion in the program reflects the CMI Summit’s emphasis on operators and decision-makers actively advancing projects through the development pipeline — and on the technical frameworks required to assess them.

About Defense Metals Corp.:
Defense Metals Corp. is an advanced rare earth elements (REE) exploration and development company focused on the development of its 100%-owned Wicheeda Rare Earth Element Project, located near Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. The Wicheeda Project is one of the most advanced undeveloped rare earth deposits in North America, with a robust mineral resource and a completed Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) supporting its development potential. The Company is committed to advancing the project through feasibility, permitting, and ultimately into production, positioning Defense Metals as a potential supplier of critical rare earth elements essential to Western defense, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy supply chains.

About the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI):
The Critical Minerals Institute (CMI) is a global think tank for the critical minerals economy, serving as a central hub that connects companies, capital markets, and policymakers, and delivering actionable intelligence through its monthly CMI Masterclasses, weekly Critical Minerals Report (CMR), bespoke research, and board-level advisory services across exploration finance, supply chains, and geopolitics. CMI also organizes its flagship Annual Critical Minerals Institute Summit, a global gathering of government leaders, institutional investors, and industry executives, with the upcoming CMI Summit 5 — “The New Critical Minerals Economy” — scheduled for May 13–14 in Toronto, Canada. For more information, please contact Chrissy Hessam, Director, Membership Services, at [email protected] or +1 647 289 7714, or visit CriticalMineralsInstitute.com. To register for the CMI Summit 5, click here.

In a market increasingly crowded with companies invoking the language of “rare earths” without necessarily understanding the science—or the economics—behind it, the conversation with Mark Tory offers a rare moment of clarity.

Appearing on InvestorNews with Tracy Hughes, Tory, President, CEO, and Director of Defense Metals Corp. (TSXV: DEFN | OTCQB: DFMTF), did not lean on market enthusiasm or geopolitical urgency alone. Instead, he returned repeatedly to a principle often overlooked in speculative cycles: in rare earths, grade in the ground is not what matters most—it’s what you can turn it into.

That distinction, while technical, is everything.

The recent inclusion of Defense Metals in a Sprott-managed ETF underscores a broader shift. Capital—still cautious, still selective—is beginning to differentiate between narrative and viability. As Tory put it, the company itself learned of its inclusion only after the fact, a quiet validation rather than a promotional milestone.

Yet the real story lies beneath the surface.

Rare earth economics are dictated not by discovery, but by processing. The cost bottleneck sits firmly in the hydrometallurgical stage, where separation and refinement determine whether a project lives or dies. Projects that can upgrade low in-situ grades into high-quality concentrates reduce both capital intensity and operational complexity. Those that cannot are unlikely to survive beyond the feasibility stage.

Defense Metals’ Wicheeda project, located in British Columbia, appears to pass that test. A 2.4% total rare earth oxide (TREO) grade in the ground may not initially stand out, but the ability to upgrade that material to a ~50% concentrate places it in the same technical conversation as industry benchmarks like Lynas and MP Materials. That is not a trivial achievement—it is the difference between geological interest and economic relevance.

It also explains why Jack Lifton has described Tory as building “North America’s rare earth breakout project.” The phrase is not about scale alone; it is about positioning within the most constrained segment of the supply chain: processing.

Location, often treated as a secondary factor in early-stage mining narratives, becomes critical at this stage. Wicheeda’s proximity to Prince George, with access to infrastructure, hydroelectric power, rail, and port connectivity, significantly lowers logistical friction. In a sector where permitting delays and infrastructure gaps routinely derail timelines, such advantages compound quickly.

Still, the path forward is not without friction.

Despite the surge in attention around rare earths—driven by energy transition narratives, defense considerations, and supply chain realignments—Tory remains measured on capital flows. Interest is rising, but conviction capital remains limited. Governments are more engaged, private investors more curious, but the sector has yet to see the scale of coordinated financing required to build out a full Western supply chain.

That gap is precisely where Defense Metals is now focused.

The next phase is less about geology and more about partnerships: strategic investors for separation expertise, offtake agreements that can anchor financing, and government support to de-risk infrastructure. The company is effectively building multiple pathways to the same outcome—bankability.

In parallel, operational milestones continue. A 30-tonne pilot plant run through SGS will test the full beneficiation and hydromet process, while preparations for a full feasibility study advance. These are not headline-grabbing developments, but they are the milestones that ultimately determine whether a project transitions from concept to construction.

What emerges from the conversation is not a story of hype, but of discipline.

In a sector increasingly shaped by macro narratives—China dependency, defense supply chains, electrification—the temptation is to treat all rare earth projects as interchangeable. They are not. Processing, not just geology, ultimately determines which projects move forward.

Defense Metals Corp. appears focused on positioning itself among those that can.

In a market still separating signal from noise, that focus may prove decisive.

To access the complete interview, click here

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European resource imperialism dominated world politics from the close of the Napoleonic Wars to the end of the Second World War. In that period, the Global South was viewed simply as a source of natural resources and cheap labor by European imperialists. 

It was not a change of attitude that collapsed the system. It was the bankruptcy of the European nation-states caused by World War II. They simply could not afford to maintain their resource-focused empires. The newly emboldened and fantastically rich United States, which was relatively self-sufficient in natural resources, had no interest in maintaining the imperial power and reach of its European “allies.” The sole focus of American foreign policy from 1945 to 1989 was to contain Soviet Communism. 

Today, three generations after the end of the Second World War, a turnabout in world affairs is only now becoming apparent. 

The nation-states of the Global South are now seeking from the Global North the technologies required to add value to their natural resources within their own nations, advancing those nations toward modern industrial states in which domestic consumer demand can be satisfied by domestic manufacturing using domestic natural resources as feedstock. 

China, the first of the formerly exploited colonial nations to achieve total success in transforming its economy from agrarian to manufacturing, has rapidly become a rival to the United States’ disjointed practice of public and private capitalism. American politicians still using the language of the Cold War characterize China as a military threat to the United States and therefore the “West.” But in fact, China is an economic competitor first and foremost. 

The naive, underdeveloped nations of the global South, especially those in Asia near China, have been courted by China to accept massive loans for internal development, with the goal of becoming self-sustaining manufacturing economies. 

Through these loans, which cannot be repaid and are the types of loans that the American government called “fuzzy”, which meant that they were not solidly based on being repayable, but rather were for long-term developments of the societies of the recipient nations in such areas as transportation, agriculture, health and safety, China has advanced its own international agenda by taking effective control of ports, mines, and transportation networks in lieu of repayment of its loans 

The Chinese government has today achieved its goal of imperial control over a global transportation and resource network. It did this not by military conquest or threat, but by accumulating, deploying, and focusing its enormous pool of state-controlled capital created in the last 25 years. 

Now comes phase two of the Chinese program to propel it to the status of the world’s richest nation by the year 2049. 

Phase two will be the targeted deployment of consumer manufacturing technology to the resource-rich nations of the global south, in exchange for China’s continued access to those resources. 

China’s recent highly publicized denial of specialized technologies and equipment for the manufacturing of high-tech required components necessary to maintain the standards of living of the rich nations of the global north, based on the stated reason of not wishing to enhance the military capabilities of its rivals is merely a cover-up for its activities in the global south. 

Those nations of the Global South most developed in their efforts to achieve a domestic manufacturing economy to support a consumer and service economy, such as Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Peru are now the subjects of an intense campaign by China to supply them with the same technologies that are being denied to the Global North nations for the manufacturing of high-technology-based components for consumer goods, which are identical to those same components, technologies, and equipment being denied, for example, to the United States based on China’s determination that those components have a dual use, both military and consumer. 

In return for the supply of manufacturing technologies to the nations of the global south, China, of course, asked that it be paid in natural resources, and lately also for some portion of the manufactured components. China’s planners seem to have recognized that lower-cost labor in Brazil, utilized to produce high-tech components, may be of direct value to the Chinese domestic economy. 

Unnoticed by American politicians, China has sent teams of specialists to the nations of the Global South to identify downstream manufacturing opportunities in natural resources and to evaluate what individual nations need in terms of support. This is not only capital, equipment, and technology, but also skilled operators of such equipment and managers of such operations. China has offered to bring selected groups of individuals from its target countries to China for education and training, and also to supply, to begin with, the trained specialists necessary to kick-start the developments it is proposing and offering to the nations of the global south.

American politicians have no idea of the extent of the Chinese master plan. They continue to believe that by throwing money at a project, the problems can all be solved. Thus, the extremely poor choices made in Washington in the last two years to solve the critical minerals “crisis”. Inexperienced financiers have been gifted with enormous amounts of taxpayer money to develop resource production and high-technology manufacturing, for which they have no prior knowledge, experience, skills, or track record of success. 

There is no more obvious mistake made by Washington’s politicians than its haphazard, chaotic financing of an attempt to revive a total domestic American rare-earth permanent-magnet manufacturing supply chain. 

Washington has either failed to recognize the choke points in such a supply chain or has deliberately ignored them because they are all under China’s direct control today. 

China’s goal is to deny the natural resources of the Global South to the Global North, not by military means, but by simply being the preferred trading partner of the nations of the Global South. In this, it is succeeding rather well. 

InvestorNews.com is pleased to announce an upcoming InvestorTalk scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at 9:00 AM EST, featuring Robin Dunbar, President, CEO, and Director, Grid Metals Corp. (TSXV: GRDM | OTCQB: MSMGF). To participate in this engaging discussion, please email [email protected] to RSVP.

Grid Metals is currently focused on its 100%-owned Falcon West property in southeastern Manitoba, where it is advancing an emerging cesium discovery. Located 110 km east of Winnipeg along the Trans-Canada Highway, Falcon West hosts highly anomalous cesium and lithium mineralization within LCT pegmatites, including the Lucy South dyke, the Company’s main exploration target. Grid also holds the Makwa Property, where Teck Resources can earn up to a 70% interest through a CAD$17.3 million option and joint venture agreement. The Mayville Property contains a NI 43-101 compliant open-pit resource of 32 million tonnes grading 0.61% CuEq, while Grid owns 75% of the adjacent Donner lithium-cesium project, which hosts 6.8 million tonnes grading 1.39% Li2O. All projects lie on Sagkeeng First Nation ancestral lands.

In preparation for tomorrow’s InvestorTalk, here are some recent news releases from Grid Metals for your review, which are listed below:

• April 15, 2026 – Grid Metals and Boliden Sign $10 Million Earn-In Agreement for the Thompson East Copper/Nickel Project in Northern Manitoba – click here
• April 1, 2026 – Grid Metals Reports First Assays From Its Phase 2 Drill Program at Falcon West Including 12.9% Cs2O Over 3.8m – click here
• February 26, 2026 – Grid Metals Reports Final Assays from its 2025 Drill Program at Falcon West Including 20.45% Cs20 over 3.3m; Announces Participation at PDAC – click here

We found the April 15^th news release titled, “Grid Metals and Boliden Sign $10 Million Earn-In Agreement for the Thompson East Copper/Nickel Project in Northern Manitoba” particularly noteworthy and here are 5 key data points from it:

• $10 Million Earn-In Agreement Signed – Grid Metals signed a definitive option and joint venture agreement with Boliden Mineral Canada on the Thompson East copper/nickel project in northern Manitoba, with the goal of discovering a Tier 1 magmatic copper-nickel-PGM-cobalt deposit.
• Boliden Can Earn 80% Interest – Boliden can earn an 80% interest in Thompson East by funding C$9.6 million in exploration and making C$500,000 in staged cash payments to Grid over four years, subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval.
• Large Manitoba Land Package – The project currently includes two mineral exploration licences totaling 10,600 hectares, with seven additional licences under application covering about 46,500 hectares, creating district-scale exploration potential.
• Prospective, Underexplored Belt – Grid says Thompson East combines strong geological potential with limited historical drilling, featuring numerous base and precious metal occurrences, strong conductors, and similarities to the nearby world-class Thompson Nickel Belt.
• Exploration Work to Begin Before Drilling – Initial plans include airborne EM and magnetic surveys, prospecting, sampling, and deep-penetrating ground EM, with a first drilling campaign on top-ranked targets unlikely until later next year.

For more information on Grid Metals Corp., click here

For more information on the InvestorTalk pre-market series, go to InvestorTalk.com.

The past week forced the critical minerals sector into a hard confrontation with reality: geopolitics is no longer a backdrop—it is the market itself. From the Strait of Hormuz to Kinshasa, from Canberra to Brussels, the scramble for control over supply chains is accelerating, but not coherently. What is emerging is not a coordinated Western response to China’s dominance, but a patchwork of policy experiments, national assertions, and—perhaps most dangerously—market distortions masquerading as strategy.

These are precisely the themes that will be addressed at the upcoming Critical Minerals Institute (CMI) Summit 5, taking place May 13–14 in Toronto under the theme “The New Critical Minerals Economy.” A draft of the speaker agenda was released this afternoon (to access the CMI Summit 5 agenda, Click Here).

The most immediate signal came from the escalation surrounding Iran, where fears of a broader regional conflict sent aluminum prices to four-year highs (Source) and exposed the fragility of chemical supply chains essential to mining and processing. Congo’s copper and cobalt miners—already operating within razor-thin logistical tolerances—were forced to reduce chemical usage due to disruptions tied to the conflict (Source). This is not a marginal issue. Sulfuric acid, reagents, and processing inputs are as critical as the ores themselves. Without them, production doesn’t slow—it stops.

That same conflict sharpened focus on a metal long neglected by Western policymakers: antimony. Canada’s “antimony gap” is no longer theoretical (Source). It is a glaring vulnerability in defense supply chains, particularly as antimony remains essential in munitions, flame retardants, and military-grade alloys. The uncomfortable truth is that while Western nations debate frameworks and funding mechanisms, adversarial or non-aligned jurisdictions continue to dominate the production and refining of key defense inputs. Allow me to mention that Jim Atkinson, CEO and Director for Antimony Resources Corp. (CSE: ATMY | OTCQB: ATMYF) will be leading the discussions on antimony at the upcoming CMI Summit 5.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is moving in a different direction—one that may prove more consequential than any Western initiative. Its decision to begin stockpiling critical minerals (Source) signals a shift from passive supplier to active market participant. If executed effectively, this could introduce a new layer of state-driven price management into already opaque markets for cobalt, copper, and potentially germanium and gallium. It is, in essence, OPEC logic applied to minerals. Allow me to point out that the Honourable Kassongo bin Nassor, President, National Chamber of Mines, DRC, will be a speaker at the upcoming CMI Summit 5.

The Honourable Kassongo bin Nassor, President of the National Chamber of Mines of the DRC, will be speaking at the upcoming Critical Minerals Institute (CMI) Summit 5.

Brazil is thinking along similar lines, but with a sharper industrial policy edge. Its demand that rare earths be processed domestically (Source) is recognition that value capture lies in processing, not extraction. The United States and its allies continue to fund upstream projects, but countries like Brazil are increasingly unwilling to export raw materials only to re-import finished products at a premium.

Against this backdrop, China remains disciplined and methodical. Chinese rare earth companies saw share price gains following quarterly price increases (Source), while copper smelters considered production curbs amid an acid export ban (Source). These are not reactive measures; they are calibrated moves within a long-term strategy that integrates mining, processing, pricing, and export controls into a single system. The West, by contrast, continues to treat each of these as separate policy domains.

The response from Western governments has been energetic—but fragmented. The European Union’s launch of a joint procurement platform for critical minerals (Source) represents a significant attempt to “socialize” resource security across member states. Yet, as Jack Lifton has bluntly observed, such approaches risk distorting markets and undermining private capital formation. Centralized procurement may secure short-term supply, but it does little to incentivize the long-term investment required to build resilient supply chains. In fact, it may do the opposite.

Similarly, the United States and Australia continue to deepen cooperation, backing projects with substantial public financing. These include support for Arafura Rare Earths Limited (ASX: ARU) and its Nolans Project, as well as broader funding initiatives involving companies such as Lynas Rare Earths Limited (ASX: LYC; OTCQX: LYSDY) and Iluka Resources Limited (ASX: ILU), all of which are central to Australia’s rare earth and mineral sands supply chains (Source). On paper, this is exactly what the industry has been calling for. In practice, however, capital alone does not solve permitting delays, technical bottlenecks in processing, or the absence of a fully integrated midstream.

Even within financial markets, the signals are mixed. The launch of a rare earths ex-China ETF by Sprott (Source) reflects growing investor appetite for diversification away from Chinese supply chains. Yet it also underscores a fundamental issue: the investable universe outside China remains thin. Without a pipeline of viable, scalable projects, financial products risk becoming vehicles of speculation rather than engines of capital formation.

Even within financial markets, the signals are mixed. The launch of a rare earths ex-China ETF by Sprott Inc. (TSX: SII) (Source) reflects growing investor appetite for diversification away from Chinese supply chains. Yet it also underscores a fundamental issue: the investable universe outside China remains thin. Without a pipeline of viable, scalable projects, such vehicles risk drifting toward speculation rather than serving as effective channels for capital formation.

In an interview on Friday, Mark Tory, President, CEO, and Director of Defense Metals Corp. (TSXV: DEFN | OTCQB: DFMTF), confirmed that the company has been included in the Sprott ETF. He will also be speaking at the upcoming CMI Summit 5.

Corporate developments further highlight this imbalance. USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR) has achieved the production of commercial yttrium metal (Source), a notable milestone—particularly given the strategic importance of heavy rare earths. But isolated successes do not constitute a system. The midstream—the separation, refining, and metallization capacity—remains the single greatest bottleneck in the Western supply chain. Without it, upstream discoveries and downstream ambitions cannot connect.

Alex Moyes, Ph.D., SVP of Mining and Processing at USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR), will also be speaking at the upcoming CMI Summit 5.

At the same time, CATL’s expansion into critical minerals (Source) illustrates how integrated players are positioning themselves. The company is not merely securing supply; it is embedding itself deeper into the value chain, linking raw materials directly to battery production and energy storage. This is the model the West has yet to replicate at scale.

Overlaying all of this is a growing willingness among policymakers to intervene directly in markets—often without fully accounting for the underlying complexities. The concept of a U.S. strategic mineral reserve under “Project Vault” (Source) has already prompted discussion among industry participants. As Lifton notes, such initiatives must contend with the practical realities of mineral economics, storage, and form. Stockpiling is not analogous to warehousing oil; different minerals degrade, oxidize, or require specific conditions to retain value. The metaphor of a “vault” may be useful—but only if these technical constraints are properly understood.

In a recent discussion with one of the architects of Project Vault, I extended an invitation to participate in CMI Summit 5, where these considerations can be explored in greater detail with the industry.

Even global financial institutions are being pulled into the fray. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s call for IMF quota reforms and World Bank financing for critical minerals (Source) reflects a recognition that traditional funding mechanisms are insufficient for the scale of investment required. Yet it also raises questions about governance, efficiency, and the role of multilateral institutions in what is increasingly a strategic competition.

Taken together, these developments point to a market that is beginning to fracture along geopolitical lines. Supply chains are being reconfigured not for efficiency, but for security. Capital is being deployed not purely for return, but for resilience. And governments are stepping in not as regulators, but as participants.

The risk is straightforward: in the rush to secure supply, the West risks undermining the very market mechanisms required to build it. Subsidies, stockpiles, and centralized procurement all have a role—but they are not substitutes for disciplined capital allocation, technical capability, and fully integrated value chains.

China understood this decades ago. The West is only now beginning to catch up.

The question is not whether the response is well-intentioned—it is whether it is coherent. Because if it is not, the current wave of policy intervention risks reinforcing the very dependencies it is trying to solve.

Join us at the upcoming CMI Summit 5 in Toronto to join this debate. We will discuss the supply chain experts attending the CMI Summit 5 in an upcoming Critical Minerals Report (CMR). For more information, go to CriticalMineralsInstitute.com.

Do you enjoy the Critical Minerals Report?

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InvestorNews Critical Minerals Institute (CMI) Directorial Headline Picks for the Past Week:

• April 16, 2026 – Canada’s antimony gap shows as Iran war sharpens focus on defence metals (Source)  
• April 16, 2026 – DR Congo to stockpile critical minerals with new reserves (Source)  
• April 15, 2026 – Op-Ed: Critical mineral sovereignty starts with deep tech (Source)
• April 15, 2026 – USA Rare Earth Completes First Commercial Yttrium Metal Production (Source)  
• April 15, 2026 – Sprott Launches Rare Earths Ex-China ETF (Source)  
• April 15, 2026 – Brazil demands rare earths be processed at home as US and China compete (Source)  
• April 15, 2026 – CATL Shares Jump on Critical-Minerals Expansion Plan, Earnings (Source)
• April 15, 2026 – Bessent supports IMF quota revamp, wants World Bank financing for critical minerals (Source)  
• April 14, 2026 – China copper smelters may press ahead with production curbs amid acid export ban (Source)  
• April 13, 2026 – EU launches operations of critical minerals procurement platform (Source)  
• April 13, 2026 – Australia and United States advance cooperation on critical minerals and rare earths supply chains (Source)  
• April 13, 2026 – Aluminum Prices Rise to Four-Year High on Hormuz Blockade Fears, Failed Iran Talks (Source)  
• April 13, 2026 – Congo copper and cobalt miners cut chemical use as Iran war disrupts supplies, sources say (Source)  
• April 13, 2026 – How Donald Trump’s ‘Project Vault’ risks upending strategic minerals market (Source)
• April 12, 2026 – US, Australia Offer $600 Million Backing for Rare Earths Project (Source)  
• April 12, 2026 – Australia and US boost support for critical minerals with $3.5 billion (Source)  
• April 12, 2026 – Chinese Rare Earth Companies Jump After Quarterly Price Hike (Source)  

InvestorNews.com Media Updates:

• April 15, 2026 – Grid Metals and Boliden Advance Thompson East Through Strategic Earn-In https://bit.ly/4cbXEth

InvestorNews.com News Release Updates:

• April 17, 2026 – Brett Lynch to Be Appointed Non-Executive Director to Support Next Phase of U.S. Expansion https://bit.ly/3Or02Dq
• April 16, 2026 – Ucore Receives a Crucial DPAS-Rated Long Lead Equipment Component at the Louisiana SMC https://bit.ly/4sFEbGp
• April 16, 2026 – Greenland Mines Enters into LOI to Evaluate Brownfield Downstream Icelandic Industrial Processing Site, Outlines Strategic Supply Chain Security Program https://bit.ly/3QfaazF
• April 16, 2026 – Defense Metals Announces Inclusion in New Sprott Rare Earths Ex-China ETF https://bit.ly/4vzPiTW
• April 15, 2026 – Nord Precious Metals Closes Unit Financings https://bit.ly/48QNlbP
• April 15, 2026 – West High Yield (W.H.Y.) Resources Ltd. Announces Exercise of Options https://bit.ly/41BYNEo
• April 15, 2026 – Power Metallic Intercepts 27.10 Meters of 2.17% CuEqRec¹, including 4.76 Meters of 10.43% CuEqRec¹ in Hole 26-050 at Lion https://bit.ly/3Qm7ujF
• April 15, 2026 – Grid Metals and Boliden Sign $10 Million Earn-In Agreement for the Thompson East Copper/Nickel Project in Northern Manitoba https://bit.ly/4dKg6uf
• April 15, 2026 – Deep Sea Minerals Corp. Appoints Anthony Zelen to the Board of Directors https://bit.ly/4czCeW6
• April 14, 2026 – Allied Critical Metals Files New Technical Report on Previously Announced PEA https://bit.ly/4cGCUKl
• April 14, 2026 – Ucore Updates Mineral Resource Estimate and Technical Report for Bokan Dotson-Ridge Rare Earth Property https://bit.ly/3Qbs9qC
• April 14, 2026 – Antimony Ridge Metallurgy Advancing with Antimony Trioxide Produced https://bit.ly/4tmfP5q
• April 13, 2026 – Fox Tungsten Announces Appointment of Mark Wellings and Greg Huffman to the Board of Directors and Grants Incentive Stock Options https://bit.ly/47Y0BuZ
• April 13, 2026 – Deep Sea Minerals Corp. Appoints Dan McConnell as Vice President of Exploration https://bit.ly/4cqx1zy
• April 13, 2026 – Spartan Metals Announces Increase to Private Placement https://bit.ly/41xlJ7Q

About the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI)
The Critical Minerals Institute (CMI) is a global brain trust for the critical minerals’ economy, serving as a hub that connects companies, capital markets, and policymakers. Through CMI Masterclasses, the weekly Critical Minerals Report (CMR), bespoke research, and board-level advisory services, CMI delivers actionable intelligence spanning exploration finance, supply chains, and geopolitics.

CMI also convenes the flagship Annual Critical Minerals Institute Summit. The next event, CMI Summit 5 — “The New Critical Minerals Economy”, will take place May 13–14, 2026, at the historic National Club in Toronto, Canada.

For more information, visit CriticalMineralsInstitute.com or contact CMI Membership Director Chrissy Hessam at [email protected].

In mining markets, there has been a blizzard of late of companies claiming to have Niobium in their assays. We might say to those who have never seen a full assay on a sample or core, you can have 60 or more elements reported back, though many companies just ask the labs to report on a handful (particularly if gold or silver focussed). That is why given the ubiquity of Rare Earths it is no surprise that virtually any assay anywhere can come up with a reading no matter how small.

In recent times, those in the Scandium space, in particular, have taken to trumpeting their Niobium virtues and we are not sure why. For some reason, the element has made it onto many Critical Metals (aka Panic) rankings issued by governments, and other quangos, when in fact the Chinese do NOT control this metal. The actual statistics are vague but around 80% of the world’s Niobium comes from one mine in Brazil, a country that was allied with the US during both of the World Wars. Most of the rest of the 20% remainder comes from Quebec. Is this any reason to panic, except if one is Chinese, or are we missing something?

Of course, the purveyors of these assays (and the creative interpretation thereof) are working from the premise that Niobium is the irreplaceable wundermetal. Sorry to disabuse them, but it is not. Our last major review of this metal was in 2014, so we wondered if we missed something. So we went to our trusty Google (feel free to try it) and up comes a story from Australian Mining stating that “Niobium has no substitutes….”. Funny that, we could have sworn that in its main usage as a ferroalloy, it has long been seen as a “swinging” metal, to the extent that when its alternatives are up in price, the steel mills switch to Niobium, and when the alternatives fall in price then users switch back (where they can) to the cheapest alternative.

And what are these obscure alternatives? Well, sorry, they aren’t obscure at all. Niobium is primarily replaced by vanadium in high-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steels and tantalum in high-temperature superalloys and electronic capacitors. Other substitutes include titanium, molybdenum, or tungsten, depending on the application, such as corrosion resistance or structural strength. But as the promoters would tell us there are NO alternatives.

The Forbidden Word

Though lawyers, traders and some mining companies, that are positioned in tightly controlled metals, tremble at the mention of the word, we shall “drop a word in your shell-like” as the denizens of London’s East End would say, and the word is “Cartel”, which we shall capitalise in this instance. Over the decades, the US has progressively defanged its anti-trust mechanisms, which are now only used to get back at people one does not like, usually of a different political stripe. However, we could have sworn that a mere 15 years ago the Lithium space was a classic cartel with four companies dominating the space and a curious perpetual calm reigned in the pricing of this element. Why did it not attract the Washington’s beady eye? Well, maybe because the number two and three in the space were American. Funny that.

Monopoly/Cartel – I Say Tomahto, You Say Tomayto

And there is Beryllium, the only metal the US (used) to dominate. In that case, one US company had over 90% of world production and it was not so much a Cartel of One, but a monopoly (same thing really). As all good monopolies do though, it has gone to seed, much to the chagrin of the Pentagon, because the “most favoured” player allowed the US market share to go to hell. So now the US has only a slight 54% of global production and has, embarrassingly, become a net importer.

Scandium – An Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery

And then there is Scandium, where hardly anyone knew who the Cartel were because they were “somewhere in central or east Asia, and in any case only produced a (vague) 10-25 tpa collectively.

Niobium – An Exclusive Club

Niobium, though, with its three big players, is sometimes referred to as a Cartel, when we would probably prefer to call it “an orderly market”. CBMM, the Brazilian giant, could wipe out the other two in a heartbeat, and then it would be called a monopoly. Instead, the canny Brazilians have made sure that a section of the market is preserved for the other two and any other small fry in the space. They have done this by not allowing the type of wild gyrations that have damaged the alternative metal, Vanadium, and neither have they beggared the miners of Tantalum (as the end-users did) by enforcing decades of sub-economic returns resulting in shrinking Western supplies and delivering control of the metal to China. This is much the same in Gallium and Germanium, two other metals, where we have no sympathy for the rapacious end-users who brought about their own current dilemma.

But why do we mention this? We happened to attend a lunch in London in recent weeks with an impressive St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) delivering on their attractions of their Araxa project.  And their virtue is not Rare Earths as a side dish or having a heavyweight, Gina Rinehart, as their largest shareholder. Their virtue is owning a chunk of territory on the northern edge of the same carbonatite that CBMM mines. Thus, it is no wonder that the stock has a market cap of over AU$500mn despite not having turned a shovel of earth yet. But action is imminent with a sizeable pilot plant going up very soon.

When challenged with the question of why CBMM would permit this, the answer was interesting in that the two percent, or so, share of the market that St George would take was almost desirable for CBMM as it lessens the pressure from those claiming CBMM is some sort of malevolent 800lb gorilla of Niobium. This makes perfect sense as it is like a pressure valve and, anyway, if demand is growing at 2% of more per year, then it’s just like giving up a chunk of a year’s growth to ensure that all stays beautiful and peaceful in the Niobium garden.

A Non-Threatening “Threat”

Now things would be different if some interloper wanted to march off with 20% of the market, and here we refer observers to a wannabe in US Midwest. But we are sure that CBMM loses not one wink of sleep over the “threat” of this company, which is more bluster than substance, as it regularly cycles from being a Rare Earth play, to a Niobium play to a Scandium play. Like a roulette wheel where one never knows where the ball is going to drop.    

The geographic distribution of accessible, economically recoverable, with current technology, rare earths is dependent not only the formation, concentration, and distribution of the mineral forms of the chemical element that are today present in the uppermost strata of the earth’s crust as a result of our planet’s formation and cooling, but also, uniquely, in their case, of the redistribution and concentration of the rare earths caused by the activity of life forms.

There are two types of general locations that prove this point. One: the sediments at or near the bottom in deep ocean locations that have been such locations for a very long time. The other areas are dry land that was once the bottoms of ancient oceans that existed for a very long time.

I am going to concentrate in this essay on the sediments in the contemporary long-lived oceans.

It turns out that the rare earths are concentrated in the teeth and bones of fish. They are present in the structural mineral for fish teeth and bones, which we categorize and name as apatite.

It is only really recently that analytical chemistry has advanced to the point where chemical elements can be detected and identified in parts per billion. This led many students and professors seeking grants to pay for their education or lifestyle to analyze everything. Ichthyologists even began looking at the chemical composition of fish fossils. Lo and behold, they found in the last twenty-five years that the construction of the teeth and bones of fish features the mineral apatite. Apatite is a mineral of the rare earths.

So what, said the ichthyologists. ” ‘I’ll tell you what,’ ” said a geologist colleague of mine, “Quote: these teeth and bones have been accumulating on the ocean bottom for millions, perhaps tens or hundreds of millions of years in some locations.”

I was part of a study funded by the United States Army Research Laboratory in 2014, where I was asked to identify all of the processes available for separating the mixtures of rare earths found in naturally occurring minerals into individual rare earth chemical compounds for further processing into ultimately end-use rare earth-enabled products.

Part of that study involved looking at the sources of the rare-earth-bearing minerals, and although my geologist friend was not part of that study, I did discuss it with him, and when he told me about what we called “fish bones,” I told him that I thought he was nuts. What I didn’t tell him was that the geologist in our working group with the Army study had come to the same conclusion.

The Army study, however, focused on the recovery of the so-called manganese nodules that cover many areas of the deep-sea floor in the Pacific Ocean. These “nodules” were being sought as sources of manganese, nickel, copper, and cobalt.

The nodules do not contain Rare Earths, and they are on the seafloor. It turned out, however, that the relatively fluid ocean bottom is just a thin layer over a more solid bottom that has been formed and compressed over millions and millions of years. A significant part of that solid material consists of the bones of the untold numbers of fish that have been born, lived, and died in those oceans for tens or hundreds of millions of years.

In Japan’s territorial waters, there is an island called Minamitorishima. The ocean there drops quickly from 1,000 m to 5,000 m in depth. To assess this drop-off, many sediment samples from beneath the surface were collected and analyzed.

The Japan Geological Agency has published analyses of these sediments, which are significantly enriched in rare earth elements. Even more significantly, the distribution of the rare earths in these sediments is skewed towards the higher-atomic-number, so-called heavy rare earths. In particular, the proportion of dysprosium and yttrium in these sediments is among the highest I have ever seen in any mineral analysis.

It can be argued that a few thousand parts per million of rare earths, although significant in the so-called ionic absorption clays in surface deposits in current and former rainforest parts of the Earth, are not significant when the minerals to be recovered are as much as three miles deep in the ocean.

Those who casually advance the above argument do not know much about contemporary dredging and rare-earth processing technologies.

Japan, which is particularly resource-poor, has targeted rare earths in sediments within its territorial waters for development as sources of these critical materials.

In fact, the Japanese government has already experimentally dredged the seabed off Minamitorishima and is now evaluating processes and technologies to develop these sediments as a source of rare earths.

A second project, sponsored by the private American company Deep Reach Technology and the University of Tokyo, proposes its own agenda for extracting the sediments and recovering the rare-earth values they contain.

Deep Reach Technology is the most advanced deep-sea engineering equipment company on the planet. In fact, its founder, Dr. John Halkyard, is regarded as the guru of deep-sea dredging engineering

Full disclosure: Deep Reach Technology has asked me to look at the technologies required to extract the rare earths from sediments recovered from the deep-sea bottom on the recovery ship. I believe this is possible. It is my opinion that the concentrates so recovered should then be transferred to the land where separation and further downstream operations can be effected.

Japan is determined to become independent of China for its rare-earth-element sources. Japan is the world’s second-largest user of rare earths after China. There are no prospects in Japan for finding economically accessible deposits of rare earths on its dry land.

The Japanese government has invested in the construction of a heavy-rare-earth-focused separation plant and a metal-making operation in France. The initial feedstock for this operation is intended to come from a Malaysian venture, which is now also under construction. The Malaysian Venture is an ionic adsorption clay mining project. It should be providing concentrates containing heavy rare earths and concentrates containing the light rare earths by the end of 2026. I don’t know the proportion of the Franco-Japanese venture’s output that will be consigned to Japan, but I suspect it will be at least half, with the balance going to European end users.

The Deep Sea mining project outlined here, I believe, is Japan’s backup to the Franco-Japanese project. It, the Deep Sea Project, has also attracted the interest of the United States government in its project to secure non-Chinese supplies of the Rare Earths, and I believe it is being actively discussed with regard to funding by both governments. I will keep the readers of Investornews informed as this happens.

One final note. The sediments discussed here can be readily pumped to the surface and dewatered. They then present as very fine-grained material, with the desired minerals occurring in microcrystalline form. This form is ideal for the beneficiation of the rare-earth-bearing minerals it contains. Of course, the engineering problem is in dredging up and pumping these materials from the ocean bottom to the surface. This is Deep Reach Technology’s expertise.

In a recent interview with host Peter Clausi, Mark Wall, President and CEO of American Rare Earths Limited (ASX: ARR | OTCQX: ARRNF | ADR: AMRRY), described the company’s Halleck Creek project in Wyoming as “materially the largest rare earth deposit in the domestic United States,” citing an estimated 8.6 million tonnes of total rare earth oxide.

Wall emphasized that while larger deposits exist globally, Halleck Creek’s advantage lies in its jurisdiction. Located in Wyoming, the project benefits from existing infrastructure—rail, power, and road access—which he described as critical to mine development economics.

The deposit, an allanite-hosted system long known to the industry, has historically faced metallurgical challenges. Wall noted that a combination of natural geological aging and advances in processing has enabled the company to develop a viable flowsheet.

Rather than constructing a traditional pilot plant, the company is advancing a distributed processing strategy. Ore will be crushed, ground, and concentrated in Wyoming, reducing approximately 100 tonnes of material to about 7 tonnes of concentrate, before being sent to the Saskatchewan Research Council for further processing. Wall said this approach reduces both cost and time while avoiding the inefficiencies of building and dismantling pilot infrastructure.

On financing, Wall confirmed ongoing engagement with multiple U.S. government bodies, including discussions tied to a non-binding letter of interest from EXIM and broader alignment with Department of Energy and Department of Defense priorities.

Strategically, the company is pursuing a U.S.-focused capital markets profile, with a NASDAQ listing underway as part of what Wall described as “fully Americanizing the company,” reflecting its Wyoming and Arizona asset base.

Looking ahead, near-term milestones include a pre-feasibility study targeted for Q3 2026, permitting submissions, and continued advancement of processing solutions. Longer-term priorities center on securing a mine-to-magnet partner and financing construction, with 2027 identified as the year to move toward building the mine and associated processing infrastructure.

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In a recent interview with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Larry Braga, President and CEO of AscentX Medical, described gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) as one of the most common gastrointestinal conditions globally, affecting a significant portion of the population and largely managed today through pharmaceutical intervention.

Braga noted that while proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) dominate the treatment landscape and provide symptom relief for many patients, a meaningful subset experiences what is known as “breakthrough,” where medications no longer adequately control reflux. It is this group that AscentX Medical is targeting with its regenerative biomaterial platform.

The company’s approach centers on a minimally invasive, endoscopically delivered injection of proprietary collagen and microspheres into the lower esophageal sphincter. The material is designed to stimulate the body’s own healing response, promoting collagen formation that reinforces the weakened barrier between the stomach and esophagus. According to Braga, the objective is not short-term symptom management, but a longer-term correction that could extend for years.

The procedure itself is expected to take approximately one hour and is positioned as a middle-ground solution between chronic medication use and invasive surgical intervention. Braga emphasized that the platform builds on more than three decades of research in regenerative biomaterials, originally developed for aesthetic applications such as wrinkle and acne scar treatment, and now being extended into therapeutic indications.

Beyond GERD, AscentX Medical is advancing additional pipeline applications, including stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and fecal incontinence, both of which leverage the same underlying principle of tissue bulking and regeneration to restore function. These programs remain in earlier stages of development but reflect a broader strategy to apply the platform across multiple high-need conditions.

Near-term milestones include the completion of preclinical studies and the initiation of a small pilot clinical trial, expected to generate the data required to support expanded trials and future regulatory submissions.

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In a recent interview with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Dr. Iqbal Sandhu, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at AscentX Medical, outlined the scale and clinical burden of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a condition affecting tens of millions of patients and defined by the backward flow of stomach acid into the esophagus due to a compromised lower esophageal sphincter.

Dr. Sandhu described GERD’s hallmark symptom—persistent heartburn—as more than a nuisance, noting its broader impact on quality of life, from disrupted sleep to dietary restriction and social anxiety. Patients often rely on proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), which suppress stomach acid but require long-term adherence and raise concerns about side effects. Surgical interventions exist but are invasive and frequently avoided by patients, leaving what he characterized as a significant treatment gap.

That gap is where AscentX Medical is positioning its regenerative injectable biomaterial platform, known as G125. The approach centers on delivering a biocompatible material into the gastroesophageal junction, where it acts as a scaffold for the body’s own tissue regeneration. Over time, the material integrates with surrounding structures, promoting collagen deposition and vascularization to form a functional barrier that supports the weakened sphincter.

“It’s not viewed as foreign by the body,” Dr. Sandhu explained, emphasizing that stability, non-migration, and the absence of inflammatory response are critical design features. The objective is not to reconstruct anatomy surgically, but to augment the natural barrier function in a minimally invasive, office-based procedure.

The company has completed the design and patenting of a specialized delivery needle intended to precisely place the biomaterial within the submucosal layer. Preclinical animal studies are the next step, with evaluations planned at 30-day and six-month intervals to assess positioning, durability, and tissue response. Positive outcomes would support progression into clinical trials and regulatory pathways.

For Dr. Sandhu, an interventional gastroenterologist, the appeal lies in scalability. Unlike more complex endoscopic or surgical procedures, the injection-based approach could be readily adopted across standard gastroenterology practices, potentially expanding access to a middle-ground therapy between medication and surgery.

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