Guyana president warns of mineral ‘dependence’ as Iran war speeds shift from oil
Germany sees US as vulnerable to squeeze on potash supplies
TMC shares soar as NOAA backs seabed mining plan
Trump sons invested in US group developing $1.1B tungsten project in Kazakhstan: FT
Zambia says privacy, minerals concerns stall US health aid deal
Guyana president warns of mineral ‘dependence’ as Iran war speeds shift from oil
Guyana President Irfaan Ali warned that shifting too quickly to renewable energy in the wake of the Strait of Hormuz oil crisis could create a new dependence on critical minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt.
The effective closure of the Persian Gulf waterway, through which about 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas is shipped, has caused fuel prices to spike around the world, prompting countries to reduce demand in the short term while pursuing other sources of energy in the longer term.
Key markets like China and the European Union are accelerating investment in wind and solar power because they are domestic sources of energy as well as being better for the environment. But this is potentially a mistake, according to Ali, who leads one of the world’s fastest-growing producers of oil.
“The world is at risk of moving from one form of dependence to another,” he said at the the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston on Monday. “We are not eliminating dependence, we are relocating it. From fuels beneath the ground to minerals within it.”
The Iran war and surge in crude prices to the highest in four years are pushing the question of energy security to the top of many governments’ agendas. Energy-importing countries are now being forced to consider the cost and availability of fuels like oil and liquefied natural gas as they build out their infrastructure.
Germany sees US as vulnerable to squeeze on potash supplies
German authorities seeking to map out US supply-chain vulnerabilities as a way to win leverage with President Donald Trump’s administration have identified a key pressure point: potash.
The US imports more than 90% of the key ingredient for agricultural fertilizer, leaving the world’s No. 1 economy highly reliant on global producers — above all Canada. Potash, a potassium-rich fertilizer made from underground deposits, would be among options for US allies should Trump further ratchet up trade and security threats, according to people familiar with the considerations.
The US president’s threats to seize Greenland, a Danish territory, stunned European leaders and prompted an effort to examine how they could identify points in global supply chains where they could apply pressure, Bloomberg reported in March. Sensitive areas include action against US technology companies with ties to the White House, scrutiny over artificial-intelligence investments and drug prices, the report showed.
In the agriculture sector, potash has emerged as a clear vulnerability. Canada is by far the largest exporter to the US and the country’s Nutrien Ltd. is the world’s largest producer. Another big player is K+S Group, a Kassel, Germany-based company that produces from the Bethune potash mine in the western province of Saskatchewan.
German officials monitoring US dependencies are looking at how companies such as K+S could be moved to scale back shipments to the US in a trade conflict, the people said on condition of anonymity as deliberations took behind closed doors.
German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil will travel to Canada later this week. No decision has been made on any restrictions involving potash and Berlin’s preferred avenue is to improve transatlantic relations than enter a tit-for-tat trade conflict that would hurt companies on both sides of the Atlantic, the people said.
The Metal Company’s (NASDAQ: TMV) shares jumped on Friday after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a US federal scientific and regulatory agency within the Department of Commerce, ruled the company’s deep-seabed mining application fully compliant.
The decision advances the project in the Clarion Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean toward a potential final permit by early 2027.
TMC’s application now enters certification, where it will be published in the Federal Register before a draft Environmental Impact Statement is released for public comment and finalized ahead of NOAA’s final decision.
Shares rose more than 7% in early trading to $5.62 and were last at $5.43, giving the company a market capitalization of about $2.3 billion.
“This determination marks an important step forward in NOAA’s transparent, rules-based process,” CEO Gerard Barron said, citing years of scientific, environmental and engineering work underpinning the application.
The compliance ruling follows the company’s recent submission of nearly a decade of exploration data to the International Seabed Authority’s DeepData platform. The dataset, collected between 2013 and 2022 across the eastern CCZ between Mexico and Hawaii, includes biological and geochemical samples from the ocean surface to depths exceeding 4,000 metres.
Expanded area
TMC’s consolidated application spans about 65,000 km², up from roughly 25,000 km² in its 2025 filing, and outlines an estimated 619 million tonnes of wet nodules with additional upside.
NOAA’s updated framework allows exploration and commercial recovery approvals to be reviewed together, potentially shortening the regulatory timeline.
Trump sons invested in US group developing $1.1B tungsten project in Kazakhstan: FT
A company backed by two of US President Donald Trump’s sons reportedly invested in a mining group that is developing a $1.1 billion tungsten project in Kazakhstan, Financial Times has found.
According to FT, both Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have been using a shell company to buy stakes in US construction group Skyline Builders (Nasdaq: SKBL), which on Thursday merged with Cove Kaz Capital Group, the unit of New York-based mining investment group Cove Capital that was awarded the tungsten project last year.
As part of the merger, the companies will create a new entity named Kaz Resources to operate the project, which comprises two deposits (Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty) located less than 20 miles apart in the Karaganda mining district of Central Kazakhstan.
The FT report, citing securities filings, detailed that Skyline had paid $20 million for a 20% stake in a company with “significant critical minerals assets in Asia”, which it revealed to be Kaz Resources.
Following the Skyline-Cove merger, Kaz Resources is expected to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “KAZR”.
Responding to FT requests, a Trump Jr. spokesperson said he “does not interface with the federal government on behalf of any company he invests in or advises,” while Eric did not comment.
The deal follows a November announcement disclosing Cove Capital’s involvement in the project as part of the Trump administration’s push to develop critical minerals assets globally to reduce its reliance on Chinese supply. The deal also underpinned a strengthened economic partnership between the US and Kazakhstan, which signed a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals that month.
Zambia says privacy, minerals concerns stall US health aid deal
Zambia’s talks with the US over a new $2 billion health aid deal stalled because the proposed agreement included data sharing that would violate citizens’ privacy rights and was conditional on first agreeing to preferential access to mineral resources, the nation’s foreign minister said.
The inclusion of the terms related to data sharing were unacceptable and “unconscionable,” Mulambo Haimbe said in a statement Monday. He also said it was concerning that the health pact depended on the governments signing a critical minerals agreement favoring US companies.
Haimbe was responding to the outgoing US Ambassador Michael Gonzales, whose farewell speech last week included sharp criticism of the Zambian government, including over what he called “institutionalized and refined corruption” that deterred US investors — claims Haimbe dismissed as “delusional.”
The spat suggests deteriorating relations with the US, after the two nations had drawn closer in recent years under President Hakainde Hichilema’s leadership. Zambia, Africa’s second-biggest copper producer, has seen growing interest from mining investors keen to cash in on near-record prices for the metal key to electric vehicles and power grids.
KoBold Metals, a US company, last week broke ground on a $2.3-billion-plus copper mine that will be Zambia’s biggest. Zambia also plans to develop a rail link to the Angolan port of Lobito, part of a corridor project to which the US has committed hundreds of millions of dollars of funding.
