US eyes more Namibian uranium imports as AI drives nuclear push
KGHM seeks copper mines closer to home to reduce logistics costs
Critical Metals stock surges after taking full control of Greenland rare earth project
DRC boosts US copper sales fivefold to 500,000 tonnes
CHART: Copper price, aluminum ‘black hole’ fears lift LME base metals index to record high
Soaring tungsten prices add impetus to Vietnam mine sale effort
US eyes more Namibian uranium imports as AI drives nuclear push
The US is weighing boosting uranium imports from Namibia, the world’s third-biggest producer, and supporting greater output of the nuclear fuel through its mining companies and government financing, America’s top diplomat in the southern African nation said.
Uranium mine in Namibia
“Uranium here is the big prize for both our countries,” US Ambassador to Namibia John Giordano said in an interview on Friday. The metallic element is crucial for anticipated growth in civilian nuclear plants that are “likely going to be the necessary power source for the hyper-scale data centers” needed for artificial intelligence, he said.
Surging power demand from data centers is transforming the global energy landscape. US President Donald Trump has championed the use of coal-fired plants, along with natural gas and nuclear power to support the rapid expansion of the energy-hungry facilities.
Namibia ranks behind Kazakhstan and Canada as the world’s three biggest producers of uranium, according to the World Nuclear Association. The US imported 633 metric tons of the fuel from Namibia in 2024, less than a tenth of what China shipped, World Integrated Trade Solution figures show.
Since being confirmed by the Senate in October and presenting his credentials to President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah later that month, Giordano has focused on matching US interests in energy, critical minerals and infrastructure by deploying the “commercial diplomacy” that characterizes Trump’s approach to international relations.
KGHM seeks copper mines closer to home to reduce logistics costs
Copper producer KGHM is looking to invest in mines in Europe and Morocco to secure ore supplies closer to its smelting base in Poland and lower logistics costs, the company’s CEO said on Wednesday.
KGHM, which operates the Robinson mine in the US and holds 55% in Sierra Gorda in Chile on top of its Polish assets, last month signed a memorandum with Morocco’s National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines and Moroccan mining firm Managem Group on cooperation in raw materials.
“We are looking for opportunities to have some resource closer to our smelting sites in Poland,” KGHM CEO Remigiusz Paszkiewicz told Reuters in an interview at the company’s Chile branch office in Santiago.
“Morocco is a good one. There is also at least one in Europe itself, an opportunity for us. We are now checking the chemistry of the deposit, let’s say,” he added, declining to identify which European company KGHM was looking at.
KGHM has dispatched geologists to Morocco and is waiting for an initial report from them, Paszkiewicz said, adding that the results could come in the next two weeks.
The Moroccan mine would serve as a source of supply to the global market as well as KGHM, he explained, as the company wants to remain active in concentrates trading. Just over half KGHM’s 710,000 metric tons of copper production in 2025 came from its own concentrates.
State-backed KGHM intends to maintain investment in Polish mining, even as it also looks at opportunities further afield in Chile and Argentina, Paszkiewicz said.
“But we see that the world is still changing,” he added, raising the possibility of switching KGHM’s Legnica copper smelter to a recycling plant.
Critical Metals stock surges after taking full control of Greenland rare earth project
Greenland has approved the indirect transfer of the mining licence for the Tanbreez rare earth project after Critical Metals Corp. (NASDAQ: CRML) increased its ownership in the developer, the territory’s ministry for mineral resources and business said on Friday.
Tanbreez project in Greenland
The approval clears the way for Critical Metals to complete its move to a 92.5% interest in the southern Greenland asset, while the licence itself remains held by Tanbreez Mining Greenland A/S. Under Greenland’s mining framework, an indirect transfer means the legal licence holder does not change, but ownership of the company behind that licence does. European Lithium holds the remaining 7.5% interest.
Shares in Critical Metals Corp surged by 23.6% in pre-market trading exchanging hands for $11.46 a share and affording the company a $1.4B market cap. The stock is up nearly four-fold over the last year but still nowhere near the peak hit in October last year.
Tanbreez, located at Killavaat Alannguat in southern Greenland, is regarded as one of the largest undeveloped heavy rare earth deposits outside China. A preliminary economic assessment released in March 2025 valued the project at about $3 billion based on a 4.7B tonne resource.
DRC boosts US copper sales fivefold to 500,000 tonnes
Gecamines’ Mutoshi copper-cobalt project
The Democratic Republic of Congo has raised planned copper sales to the United States to 500,000 tonnes through a state-backed marketing venture, marking a fivefold increase from its initial January commitment.
The deal, first reported by Semafor, is led by state miner Gécamines and marketed through a joint venture with Mercuria Energy Group, with backing from the US International Development Finance Corporation. It targets copper output from Gécamines’ minority stakes in major operations, including Kamoto Copper Company and Tenke Fungurume.
The expanded agreement highlights the DRC’s growing influence in global copper markets while intensifying competition between Western and Chinese players for control of critical mineral supply chains, as Kinshasa seeks to convert passive stakes into direct revenue and greater commercial control.
Gécamines has been working to transform its holdings in some of the country’s largest mines into physical copper it can market independently. Its stakes include Glencore’s (LON: GLEN) Kamoto Copper Company and the Chinese-run Tenke Fungurume mine, one of the world’s highest-grade copper-cobalt deposits.
While the partnership is intended to improve transparency and control, Mercuria remains the seller of record as Gécamines develops an in-house trading arm.
CHART: Copper price, aluminum ‘black hole’ fears lift LME base metals index to record high
A gauge of industrial metals jumped to a record high on the London Metal Exchange on Thursday, driven by gains in aluminum after the Middle East war disrupted supplies, as well as a recent revival in copper.
The LME Index, which tracks six major metals, has rallied by almost 12% over the past four weeks and was at an all-time peak at the close of trading. Aluminum has risen more than 15% since the start of the Iran war, with roughly a 10th of global output coming from the Middle East.
Aluminum has the biggest weighting in the LME gauge, and prices for the metal hit a four-year high on Thursday, moving closer to a record struck in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Together with copper — which has also moved back towards a record reached in January — the two metals make up almost three-quarters of the index.
Nickel, zinc and tin have also rallied this year, although none of the individual constituents of the index are at all-time highs.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has warned the aluminum industry was heading toward a “black hole” as a serious, prolonged supply deficit is hitting the market after supply losses escalated dramatically in the wake of Iranian strikes directly targeting two key smelters in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain at the end of last month. A double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — by the US and Iran — is also keeping shipments stranded.
But while the waterway remains closed, hopes that a ceasefire between the US and Iran will be extended and signs the two sides may be moving closer to a peace deal have aided other metals. They were hit by soaring energy costs and fears of slowing global growth due to the war, but have recovered in recent weeks on signs the conflict might be winding down.
Soaring tungsten prices add impetus to Vietnam mine sale effort
Masan High-Tech Materials
Some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Hanoi, in Thai Nguyen province, a massive open-cut mine tears into the landscape. Ringed by dense, green hills, the vast, stepped crater is raw gray and brown. Along its sides, huge trucks creep along, while a murky pool lies stagnant at the bottom.
This is Nui Phao, a mine that’s key to Vietnam’s foothold in the global critical minerals market. It contains one of the world’s most important, and largest, non-China sources of tungsten, a metal essential for everything from chips and drilling equipment to armor-piercing weaponry.
With the value of the super-dense material soaring as countries ramp up defense budgets, it’s little wonder Nui Phao’s owner, Masan High-Tech Materials, a unit of Masan Group, is amping up its search for strategic investors.
“We’ve been talking to Japanese, Australian, European and American strategic” investors, Masan Group deputy chief executive officer Michael Hung Nguyen told Bloomberg News after a media tour of the mine on Friday. “A lot of interest is coming from people who want to secure supply.”
With Masan looking to conduct a public listing at some point, “anybody with a strategic equity stake we would obviously be providing a progressive offtake agreement to sweeten the deal and make it long term.”
