CMJ Daily Tape
POLICY FRAMEWORK | TUNGSTEN
Allied Critical Metals said on October 15 that its 100%-owned Borralha tungsten project in northern Portugal is one of 46 new Strategic Projects selected by the European Commission under the Critical Raw Materials Act. The company said Borralha is the only Portuguese project and the only tungsten extraction project in the selection. According to the company, the status gives access to streamlined permitting, generally capped at 27 months for extraction projects, excluding periods such as preparation of the environmental impact assessment report. Allied said the designation does not guarantee funding and does not exempt the project from EU or Portuguese environmental rules. Borralha's resource, effective November 16, 2025, includes 1.0 Mt Measured at 0.22% WO₃ and 12.0 Mt Indicated at 0.21% WO₃.
The 27-month cap starts after the environmental impact report is written, and it covers permits, not a plant. At the company's own grades, Borralha's Measured and Indicated tonnage holds about 27,400 t of contained WO₃ in situ. That concentrate still has to pass a converter's qualification as APT feed before any European tool maker can count it as supply. Strategic status shortens the paper path. It does not shorten the metallurgical testwork a converter asks for before it signs an offtake.
JOINT VENTURE | COPPER
CoTec Holdings and Battery Mineral Resources signed a non-binding framework agreement toward a Strategic Economic Joint Venture at BMR's Punitaqui mining district in Chile's Coquimbo region. The venture would test copper recovery from historical and active tailings and lower-grade sulphide mineralization using technologies sourced through CoTec. BMR keeps 100% of its existing operation above a baseline the parties still have to agree; each side would take 50% of incremental production. CoTec is expected to pay the third-party costs of testing it approves. The release gives no capacity, grade, cost or timeline.
The deal hangs on a baseline nobody has written down yet. Every tonne of copper Punitaqui produces will have to be sorted into BMR's 100% bucket or the shared 50% bucket, which needs a metering and accounting protocol at the concentrator before any tailings are reprocessed. The resource report the release cites dates from September 2022. Watch whether the definitive agreement sets the baseline by mine plan, by throughput or by recovery rate: each one hands the upside to a different party.
PRODUCTION | COPPER
Shanghai Metals Market data show China's copper semis production at 1.7257 million mt in September, up 3.5% month on month and down 4.25% year on year. January–September output reached 15.6382 million mt, up 1.16%. Copper cathode rod was 903,800 mt, down 4.46% year on year; secondary copper rod was 69,300 mt, down 51.47%. Copper foil rose 30.00% and plate, sheet and strip rose 21.26%. SMM expects October output near 1.6213 million mt, with the operating rate at 58.07%.
Secondary rod lost half its volume in a year while foil and strip grew by a fifth to nearly a third. That is a shift in feed, not only in demand: rod mills that ran on scrap are idle, and foil lines run on cathode. Scrap that no longer goes to rod has to find a smelter or an export route. SMM calls the October dip a holiday effect, yet it also names the continued contraction in secondary rod as a cause, and that line was shrinking long before the holiday.
PRODUCTION | LITHIUM
Shanghai Metals Market said China's lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) production rose about 3.4% month on month in September 2026 and about 59% year on year. According to SMM, electrolyte makers stocked up before the National Day holiday, most LiPF6 producers ran at full capacity, and some new lines ramped up more slowly than expected because of technical barriers and strict quality requirements. SMM said falling lithium carbonate prices and earlier LiPF6 price rises not fully passed downstream limit producers' willingness to expand, and it expects October output growth to stay slow.
A 59% annual rise with plants at full capacity means the growth came from new lines, and SMM says those are the lines ramping slowly. LiPF6 is a moisture-sensitive salt: a new line has to pass each electrolyte customer's purity qualification before its tonnes count. The bottleneck sits in the qualification queue, not in lithium supply. With carbonate prices falling, LiPF6 makers get cheaper feed but face buyers who resist higher salt prices, so margin goes to whoever qualifies first.
