Welcome back to CMJ,
Here are the 20-second highlights of what we’ll cover:
Japan crossed a strategic threshold in rare earths, advancing to the testing of REE-rich deep-sea mud from 6,000 meters
Rare earths policy accelerated across Japan, Chile, the United States, Brazil and India
Uranium reminded us that movies are a great representation of life: Yellowcake stranded at a Niger military air base exposing how logistics, sovereignty, and security risk can reprice the sector
Copper’s short term shortage fear is growing, and evidences of it are in the U.S. COMEX inventories
Lithium’s rebound gained credibility, with prices and equities responding to renewed institutional interest and energy storage demand
Rare earths
We are reaching a point where nations seem desperate to secure their HREE feed.
A sign of it is what Japan just announced (and started doing): deep see mining of rare earths. Japan begun what is effectively the world’s first full-scale test of lifting rare-earth-rich deep-sea mud from roughly 6 kilometers below sea level near Minamitori Island, using the drilling vessel Chikyu.
The practical goal is not commercial tonnage in 2026. It’s to prove that Japan can turn a resource-geology fact into an engineering program with measurable milestones, in order to reduce dependence on Chinese processing that still covers around 60 percent of its rare earth needs (especially now with the recent export restrictions to Japan).
This must be read through a strategical lens, having in mind that Japan with its institutions, notably thought its Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), is placing a program of initiatives to secure REE. And deep-see mining may be a long-shot, but with very high potential reward. When you are cornered, having optionalities gives one power.
It’s worth noting that today Japan serves as a major hub for Permanent Magnets outside of China (keep that in mind).
Zooming into project developments, Critical Metals Corp, owner of the Tanbreez heavy rare earth project in Greenland, signed a non-binding term sheet for a 50-50 joint venture with a Saudi industrial group to develop a processing facility in Saudi Arabia, including long-term offtake rights for a quarter of Tanbreez’s production into US defense supply chains.
The project remains at an early stage, with permitting, detailed engineering, and full financing still ahead. But the deal signals Saudi Arabia’s intention to step up into the critical minerals race, with an announcement meticulously planned during the FMF (Future Minerals Forum), held in Riyadh.
(Signals and rites, my friends, matter a great deal).
Uranium
You realize a commodity is upgraded to a critical mineral when its reality resembles a Hollywood action movie (stay with me here!):
Roughly 1,000 metric tons of yellowcake produced at Niger’s Arlit mine have remained parked for weeks at Niamey’s military air base, after a convoy of more than 30 trucks was stopped en route to the port of Lomé
Reporting indicates that the stock originated from the French group Orano’s operations and that Niger’s junta has explored a sale to Russia’s Rosatom (its State Atomic Energy Corporation)
The parties officially deny, but this has nonetheless triggered a French theft complaint and visible scrutiny from the IAEA and the United States
The proximate cause is straightforward: a new regime attempting to monetize a strategic asset while juggling sanctions, broken trade corridors, and domestic legitimacy
The ‘second-order effect’ is what matters to us: fragile logistics, sanctions exposure, and security risks
If Uranium is to ‘return’ with its full power, the reality between the mines and the actual reactors is crucial. This is where companies/projects will show their site's competitive advantages
(Note: can you also see this in a movie?)
On a more positive side, in Canada’s Athabasca Basin, NexGen confirmed an expanded high-grade subdomain at its Patterson Corridor East (PCE) discovery and launched what it calls its ‘largest ever exploration program’, totaling around 45,500 meters of drilling in 2026.The company’s own language ties the program explicitly to expectations of tight long-term supply and the desire to surface additional ‘Arrow-like’ discoveries across its land package.
In Sweden, Ragnar Metals released rock-chip sampling results from the Klockartorpet project, confirming high-grade uranium mineralization at surface over more than 150 meters of strike, with highlight samples grading close to 0.3 percent U3O8, alongside elevated zirconium and hafnium.This is still surface sampling, not a resource, but that shows European uranium geology is not theoretical. Think about it, an EU member state with a potential uranium supply.
Prices quietly validated the theme of a tightening market, breaking a supposedly ‘resistance’ at mid-85,000s (I’m including it in here just as a reference; please let me know in the comments if this is something unnecessary or if it’s helpful to see price charts):
Copper
Expanding from what we covered last week on reasons behind the copper price surge, this week it was reported that the U.S. COMEX warehouses inventory has reached a new record of >450,000 tonnes, compared with less than 100,000 tonnes a year ago and about 400,000 at the start of December 2025. This suggests, once again, a market fear of shortage in the short term.
And on such conditions, projects that were buried under compressing prices are resurging as alternatives:
In Peru, Coppernico’s Sombrero project re-entered ‘coverage’.
Across Canada and Africa, exploration and expansion updates in Yukon, Nunavut, and Ontario are being re-read through the new pricing lens.
In the United States, Taseko continued commissioning work at its Florence in-situ copper project in Arizona, which is designed as a lower-footprint, lower-capex route to new copper units in a jurisdiction that has historically blocked large open pits (Company claims).
And to conclude, Zambia’s high ambition to reach ~3 million tonnes of copper output by 2031 is gaining strength in this context as well.Official targets and company plans still imply a sizeable gap between resources on paper and credible project pipelines, but the government's full support and price levels make it a compelling case.
Lithium
Lithium is not behind on the pricing run, quite the opposite, it’s accelerating (or even initiating a ‘Commodity super cycle’?)
Last week, we mentioned the Energy Storage Sector (ESS) as one of the surging demand drivers (sharing some visuals of a report by UBS), and it looks like the market is echoing this same thesis.
On the project front, several exploration and development updates across the Americas reinforced the view that geology is not the limiting factor.
Quebec and other Canadian provinces continued to surface spodumene-bearing pegmatites, while South American brine and hard-rock projects remained in varying stages of financing and permitting.
The binding constraints are increasingly around midstream conversion capacity, environmental and community approvals, and the willingness of capital to underwrite long-dated projects in a market that has already demonstrated how fast prices can correct (and believe, a ‘capital pain’ is hardly forgotten).
The lithium rebound thesis remains and is gaining validation in price and equity behavior (including stock coverages).
And the market is starting to price in a future where lithium competes more directly with sodium and other chemistries in stationary applications (such as ESS).
In the United States, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation for a U$ 2.5 billion ‘Strategic Resilience Reserve’ to stockpile critical minerals and moderate price volatility through market-based purchases and sales.The proposal explicitly references rare earths and seeks to build a Western reference point for pricing, acknowledging that allowing non-China investment to run into a price crash has been a dominant failure mode for the last two cycles.It is still a bill, not a budget line, but it reinforces that U.S. is prepared to experiment with all possibilities to assure its national security
Note: That will sit alongside existing Pentagon and Department of Energy (DOE) toolkits, and, if implemented, would give the U.S. a lever that looks more like an institutionalized buyer of last resort than an ad hoc grant machine. And if you are following the critical minerals space closely, you’ll see the resemblance to the recent EU project REsourceEU.
Diplomatically, Brazil and U.S. are exploring a rare earths agreement, building on the U$ 465 million of U.S. DFC into Serra Verde and a growing pipeline of heavy rare earth projects.Talks are at an early stage and sit inside a wider negotiation over tariffs and foreign policy alignment, but the direction of travel is clear (and obvious): Brazil is positioning its rare earth deposits as a strategic bargaining chip with both the United States and the European Union (not to mention, of course, China).
In Asia, Japan’s decision to actually explore rare earths from deep-sea mud, rather than stopping at seismic data and resource estimates, is a concrete reminder that there is no ‘physical boundary’ when it comes to securing critical minerals.The experiment will test not only metallurgy and environmental impact, but also public acceptance.
India’s decision to open thorium and monazite exploration to private players through PPP structures is equally significant.By inviting private capital into what has historically been a tightly controlled nuclear and strategic domain, India is showing that it is prepared to trade some degree of control in exchange for speed and capital depth.The execution risk is material, of course. Contracts need to be designed, environmental safeguards put in place, and local politics developed. All of this will determine whether India ends up with a functioning rare earth and thorium industry or simply more project announcements.
Uranium geopolitics this week was dominated by the ‘Niger movie’. And in parallel, Western governments continued to accelerate nuclear-adjacent industrial policy.The U.S. moved to ease regulations on conversion and enrichment, announced additional HALEU procurement, and highlighted partnerships to deploy new reactor fleets. This policy mix is one of the reasons physical funds have continued to accumulate yellowcake and why futures have drifted higher even without a single catalytic supply shock.
Gentle reminder (even though it’s crystal): In critical minerals, the vast majority of key decisions are being made by finance ministries, defense departments and presidential advisers, not by mining companies or project financiers.
And this might be one of the strongest signals of a ‘Commodity super cycle’ or some other catalytical event.
Most of the critical minerals are behaving more or less the same way, and we should make a note of that.
Thank you for reading and for being part of the CMJ community.In markets driven by geopolitics, foresight is power. If you found it valuable, share it with a peer who needs the same edge (or keep it close and use it to your advantage).
