CMJ Daily Tape
POLICY FRAMEWORK | CRITICAL MINERALS
The European Commission selected 46 new Strategic Projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act on 9 October 2026, chosen from 102 applications in a second call that closed on 15 January 2026. The projects sit in 16 Member States and cover 15 of the 17 strategic raw materials. By stage, 19 are recycling, 11 processing, eight extraction and eight integrated, of which three combine extraction and processing and five processing and recycling. By material, 12 cover nickel, 10 cobalt, seven lithium, five manganese, four graphite, four rare earth elements, three tungsten and two magnesium. The Commission said 25 of the projects selected in 2025 have completed environmental impact assessments and 17 hold construction permits.
Nineteen recycling projects against eight extraction ones is a bet that Europe can feed its converters from scrap it does not yet collect. A recycling plant qualifies on feedstock, not on permits: a magnet recycler needs end-of-life flow and a qualified separation route before an offtaker signs anything. The 2030 recycling benchmark of 25% is the cheapest to build toward and the hardest to fill. Watch which of the 19 publish feedstock contracts rather than construction permits.
REGULATORY DECISION | NICKEL
MMG and Anglo American defended MMG’s roughly US$500-million purchase of Anglo American’s Brazilian nickel business at a day-long European Union antitrust hearing on 8 October 2026, attended by the Commission’s senior merger official Guillaume Loriot. Troy Hey, MMG’s executive general manager for corporate relations, said the Commission’s in-depth inquiry and its allegation that MMG planned to divert ferronickel away from Europe are “fundamentally unsupported”, and that the Commission used two partial quotations out of more than 200,000 documents supplied. Hey said MMG may offer remedies in the coming weeks.
A ferronickel unit is qualified mill by mill, so a diversion theory is testable against contract coverage rather than intent. If European stainless producers hold multi-year tonnage from the Brazilian plant, redirecting it costs MMG penalties; if they buy spot, no plan is needed to redirect anything. Ruben Fernandes, Anglo American’s Brazil chief operating officer, told regulators the mine would likely close if the deal is blocked. A remedy that fixes a volume floor for Europe is cheaper than a prohibition fight.
PERMITTING | COPPER
KGHM Polska Miedź said on 9 October 2026 that the European Commission designated two of its investments, worth a combined 9.5 billion zlotys or about US$2.44 billion, as strategic projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act. The Retków-Grodziszcze mine is planned to extract more than 100 million tonnes of ore and nearly 1.5 million tonnes of copper, plus more than 5,000 tonnes of silver, by 2055. The Legnica smelter will be converted into a recycling plant producing about 135,000 tonnes of electrolytic copper and 250 tonnes of nickel a year. Michal Kozak, an analyst at the Polish brokerage Trigon, said it is unclear whether the status will bring significant financial support.
A smelter conversion is a feedstock problem dressed as a permitting problem. Legnica is meant to turn out 135,000 tonnes of electrolytic copper a year from scrap, about two and a half times the annual copper the new Retków-Grodziszcze mine averages out to 2055. Strategic status shortens permits; it does not create the collection network or the shredding capacity a converted plant needs to run at rate. Watch KGHM’s scrap purchase contracts before its permit dates.
PRICE BENCHMARK | RARE EARTHS
Shanghai Metals Market reported on 9 October 2026 that rare earth prices consolidated on a subdued note. Praseodymium-neodymium oxide and praseodymium-neodymium alloy were unchanged day on day, while terbium oxide fell 50,000 yuan per tonne and terbium metal fell 40,000 yuan per tonne. Dysprosium, gadolinium and holmium oxides and their iron alloys, and erbium oxide, were flat. Outside China, praseodymium-neodymium oxide and alloy were stable on a CIF Rotterdam basis and neodymium oxide fell US$10 per kilogram. SMM said tender purchases by some large magnetic material producers lifted inquiries, with limited acceptance of high-priced offers.
Terbium falling while praseodymium-neodymium holds is a heavy-end story, and the heavy end is what a high-temperature magnet needs. A motor grade qualified at a given terbium loading cannot move to a cheaper loading without requalifying the part, so a 50,000 yuan fall does not reach the magnet buyer this quarter. It reaches the separator, whose heavy-end revenue drops while light-end feed costs hold. Watch separation margins in China, not magnet quotes.
ACQUISITION | COPPER
NeoTerrex Minerals said on 9 October 2026 that it signed a definitive option agreement dated 6 October 2026 with Eastmain Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fury Gold Mines, to earn up to 100% of the Reservoir copper-gold-silver-tungsten project in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region of Québec. The property has 116 claims over about 6,090 hectares, about 390 kilometres north-northeast of Matagami. NeoTerrex pays $500,000 in staged cash and spends $3 million on exploration through 2030 to reach 100%, with Fury keeping a 2% net smelter returns royalty, half of which is buyable for $1 million.
Four staged payments to 2030 buy exploration time, not a deposit. The tungsten in the project name is an anomaly reaching 0.10% W with no reported interval, so the only critical mineral here with a grade behind it is the copper in one-metre channel samples at 8.15%. A route to concentrate needs a copper flotation answer first and a scheelite circuit years later. Watch the copper widths in the first drill program, not the four-metal name.
