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United States Mining

Arctic energy and mineral race heats up – by Maureen McCall (Troy Media – February 12, 2025)

https://troymedia.com/

Nations scramble for Arctic oil, gas and minerals amid rising global demand

“Go West, young man, go West… and grow up with the country” is a phrase  attributed to Horace Greeley from the New York Daily Tribune back in 1865.In 2025, the phrase might be updated to “Go North, young man, go North” as optimism rises about the potential of oil and gas and critical minerals in the Arctic.

Optimism about the size of the prize of Arctic hydrocarbons rose in 2012 when the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) assessed that the Arctic holds an estimated 13 per cent (90 billion barrels) of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil resources and 30 per cent of its undiscovered conventional natural gas resources. The EIA has estimated that the Arctic may hold most of the world’s remaining untapped oil and gas reserves.

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Trump Orders Treasury Secretary to Stop Minting Pennies – by Yan Zhuang and Erica L. Green (New York Times – February 10, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Can he do that? It’s not clear. But President Trump is right when he says that pennies “literally cost us more than 2 cents.”

Since taking office, President Trump has set his sights on big targets, like Greenland. But he has also taken aim at small ones, like paper straws. And pennies. On Sunday night, Mr. Trump said he had ordered the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said in a post on Truth Social, adding that pennies “literally cost us more than 2 cents.” It is unclear whether Mr. Trump has the power to do this. It is Congress, not the Treasury or the Federal Reserve, that authorizes the manufacture of the nation’s coins, according to the U.S. Mint.

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China chokes tungsten exports to the United States – by Annie Lee (Bloomberg News/Financial Post – February 6, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Tungsten hasn’t been mined commercially in the U.S. since 2015, the nation counting China as its biggest source

The phone has been ringing off the hook for Lewis Black after China imposed export controls on tungsten, a niche metal mined by his firm that’s crucial to weapons manufacturing.

The chief executive officer of North America’s Almonty Industries Inc. said his customers are in a “state of disbelief” following Beijing’s move on Tuesday, one of a suite of measures announced as a riposte to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by the Trump administration.

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Canadian Tariffs Will Undermine U.S. Minerals Security – by Gracelin Baskaran (Centre for Strategic and International Studies – Janaury 29, 2025)

https://www.csis.org/

Gracelin Baskaran is the Director, Critical Minerals Security Program.

As the United States races to reduce its reliance on China for minerals vital for national, economic, and energy security, tariffs with Canada may drastically undermine these efforts. Canada is the biggest source of the United States mineral imports, providing key sources of uranium, aluminum, nickel, steel copper, and niobium. To put it into perspective, in 2023, Canada accounted for $47 billion of United States mineral imports.

China followed with $28.3 billion. The consequences of tariffs would be particularly profound for the defense industry, nuclear energy, and heavy manufacturing. A 25 percent tariff on Canadian mineral imports could cost U.S. off-takers an additional $11.75 billion—a figure that would increase as base metal and uranium prices recover.

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Trump’s Greenland Obsession May Be About Extracting Metals for Tech Billionaires – by Lucas Ropek (Gizmodo.com – January 30, 2025)

https://gizmodo.com/

The great battle for Greenland is probably all about resources to make apps like ChatGPT better.

Our new president’s obsession with buying Greenland has inspired jeers, laughs, and jokes about the cost of eggs, but more and more, the attempted procurement looks less like a joke and more like a big handout for the tech companies that backed him during the election. Multiple new reports show that some of Donald Trump’s most prominent financial benefactors have long been pursuing financial opportunities in the Arctic nation.

The Lever reports on the activities of KoBold Metals, a startup that is actively engaged in mining Greenland for raw materials that can be used to build AI products. KoBold, which is based in Berkeley, California, and uses AI to hunt for metals like cobalt, lithium, copper, and nickel, is basically the property of the tech industry’s most powerful executives.

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NEWS RELEASE: USGS: Value of U.S. mineral production edged up in 2024 (January 31, 2025)

https://www.usgs.gov/

Record prices for gold and silver helped to offset declines in U.S. production of critical minerals used in batteries, the 30th annual Mineral Commodity Summaries details

Reston, Va. — The overall value of U.S. mineral production edged up by \$1 billion in 2024 to $106 billion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s annual Mineral Commodity Summaries. Record prices for gold and silver buoyed the total, more than compensating for a 40 to 60 percent fall in the value of U.S. production of critical minerals used to make lithium-ion batteries.

Prices for the battery materials, principally cobalt, lithium and nickel, fell due to oversupply by dominant producers including China. The report also highlights the overall importance of nonfuel minerals to American industries including aerospace, electronics and construction. These industries represented $4.08 trillion in value in 2024, a 4% increase over 2023, and nearly one-seventh of the U.S. economy.

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China funnelled $57 billion to control critical mineral supply chain – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – January 29, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

China has systematically extended its control over critical minerals essential for the global energy transition and net-zero emissions, using a network of at least 26 state-backed financial institutions over the past two decades, a new report shows.

The database, compiled by AidData at the College of William & Mary in the United States, reveals how Beijing has leveraged an intricate web of financial mechanisms to dominate the global supply chain for critical minerals. These minerals — including copper, cobalt, nickel, lithium and rare earth elements — are vital for emerging technologies such as electric vehicle batteries and solar panels.

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Shipments of uranium ore can resume under agreement reached with the Navajo Nation – by Susan Montoya Bryan (Associated Press – January 29, 2025)

https://apnews.com/

Shipments of uranium ore from a revived mining operation just south of the Grand Canyon are expected to resume in February after the Navajo Nation reached a settlement with the mining company, clearing the way for trucks to transport the ore across the largest Native American reservation in the U.S.

The agreement announced Wednesday settles a dispute that erupted last summer when Energy Fuels Inc. began trucking ore from the Pinyon Plain Mine to a mill site in Utah. Navajo authorities attempted to put up roadblocks but the trucks already had left tribal roadways.

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US buyers face higher costs if Trump pursues copper, aluminum tariffs – by Melanie Burton, Yuka Obayashi, Neha Arora, Ernest Scheyder, Polina Devitt and Eric Onstad(Reuters – January 28, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on US copper and aluminum imports will result in higher costs for local consumers because of a shortfall in domestic production, analysts and industry participants said on Tuesday.

In a speech on Monday, Trump said he would impose tariffs on aluminum and copper – metals needed to produce US military hardware – as well as steel, to entice producers to make them in the United States.

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Trump wastes no time on the Ambler Road – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – January 21, 2025)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Reinstating Ambler Road permits was part of the “Unleashing Alaska” executive order signed by President Trump on first day back in office.

With the stroke of a pen on his first day back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reverse the previous administration’s decision to revoke permits required to build a road to the Ambler Mining District, along with a series of other Biden era initiatives that are significantly impacting resource development in Alaska.

The “Unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential” executive order signed by Trump shortly after being sworn into office reflects a list of sweeping changes requested by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

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US versus China: the battle for rare earth dominance – by Qamar Bashir (Business Recorder – January 24, 2025)

https://www.brecorder.com/

During Scott Bessent’s confirmation hearing for US Treasury Secretary before the Senate Finance Committee, significant concerns were raised regarding China’s dominance in the rare earth elements (REEs) market.

The Committee underscored that China controls approximately 70 percent of global rare earth mining and nearly 90 percent of refining capacity, a near-monopoly that grants Beijing substantial influence over these critical materials. This dominance poses severe risks to US national security, economic stability, and technological independence, given that REEs are essential for industrial, technological, and military applications.

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Rio Tinto bets on Trump support for long-stalled Arizona copper mine – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – January 22, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto said on Wednesday it is very optimistic about US President Donald Trump granting it the final permits for its long-delayed Resolution copper project in Arizona.

The mining giant has faced a 12-year permitting battle to develop the Resolution mine, which has the potential to supply more than a quarter of the US domestic copper needs for decades. “I do think that we have really good chances now to progress that project,” chief executive Jakob Stausholm told the Financial Times. “We have made a lot of progress.”

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Cleveland-Cliffs CEO renews efforts to purchase U.S. Steel – “I have an all-American solution.” – by Andy Sheehan (CBS News – January 13, 2025)

https://www.cbsnews.com/

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – It’s a battle over U.S. Steel and the future of steelmaking in the region – with fiery words, the CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs said his company is once again trying to buy the company.

“The United States of America, Japan, beware, you don’t understand who you are,” said Lourenco Goncalves, the CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs. Goncalves is promising to revitalize the Mon Valley while keeping the operation in American hands.

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Uranium Fever Collides With Industry’s Dark Past in Navajo Country – by Jacob Lorinc (Financial Post/Bloomberg – January 14, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

The world’s re-embrace of nuclear power creates tensions in the US Southwest

(Bloomberg) — A few miles south of the Grand Canyon, thousands of tons of uranium ore, reddish-gray, blue and radioactive, are piled up high in a clearing in the forest. They’ve been there for months, stranded by a standoff between the mining company that dug them deep out of the ground, Energy Fuels Inc., and the leader of the Navajo Nation, Buu Nygren.

Back in the summer, Energy Fuels had triggered an uproar when it loaded some of the ore onto a truck, slapped a “radioactive” sign over the taillights and drove it through the heart of Navajo territory.

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‘As much money out the door as they possibly can’: Biden administration keeps grants coming – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – December 18, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

The Biden Administration continues to announce major funding deals for many of Canada’s critical minerals companies

The United States government says it will provide a US$754-million loan to construct a synthetic graphite plant in Tennessee to Novonix Ltd., whose chief executive Chris Burns is based in Halifax, where it maintains its research labs, though it is publicly listed in Australia.

The loan is just one example of how U.S. President Joe Biden‘s administration’s focus on building out a North American critical minerals supply chain has often accrued to the benefit of Canadian-based companies, many of which have struggled to raise money on public markets in the face of moribund commodity prices.

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