The International Council on Mining and Metals appointed Froydis Cameron-Johansson as CEO, making her the organization's first woman president; she will succeed Rohitesh Dhawan on November 23 and inherit an agenda centered on responsible production and critical-mineral value chains. Allied Critical Metals' Borralha Tungsten Project in northern Portugal received EU Strategic Project designation under the Critical Raw Materials Act — the only tungsten extraction project and the only Portuguese project among 46 newly selected Strategic Projects — unlocking streamlined permitting of up to 27 months and enhanced financing access, a development that directly supports the EU's broader strategy of expanding critical mineral procurement from Vietnam, where internal EU documents recommend financial support for Vietnamese mining and processing of tungsten, bismuth, antimony, and titanium ahead of an expected high-level bilateral meeting on October 22.

On the tungsten recycling and supply-chain front, Kyocera announced plans to build a domestic smelting facility in Japan using a proprietary amino-acid process to recover tungsten carbide from used cutting tools, with operations targeted for fiscal 2030 under a METI Supply Assurance Plan certification, while Hyperion Materials & Technologies acquired Ultra-Met Company, an Ohio-based tungsten carbide manufacturer, on October 1, 2026, to strengthen Western aerospace and defense supply chains.

In the United States, NioCorp's Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in Nebraska received an Export-Import Bank letter of support toward an approximately $840 million federal loan, with federal and state officials gathering at the site to mark progress on a project designed to produce eight critical mineral products domestically and support roughly 1,200 construction and 500 permanent jobs over a 40-year operating life. A separate video report highlighted the Nebraska mine's supply chain role in reducing U.S. dependence on foreign adversaries. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent simultaneously called for World Bank reforms that would direct resources into deep-sea critical minerals mining and processing capacity, alongside demands to lift restrictions on upstream oil and gas financing. U.S. envoy Sergio Gor is bringing over 200 firms to Central Asia to explore critical mineral opportunities as Washington pursues supply-chain diversification away from China.

On the Greenland front, President Trump announced that massive resource exploration is beginning in Greenland following a September 22 trilateral security agreement with Denmark and Greenland that expands U.S. military access and establishes a screening mechanism blocking non-NATO, non-EU investors from controlling critical mineral sectors; Greenland's deputy mining minister cautioned that extraction remains far from the "massive" scale described, with the most advanced oil project — in the Jameson Land Basin — now targeting a winter 2027 drilling window after regulatory delays, while Critical Metals Corp holds the Tanbreez rare earth project in the territory. AuKing Mining separately noted that Trump's Greenland stance supports its own proposed earn-in acquisition of a Greenland project.

In India, Odisha Mining Corporation and the Atomic Minerals Directorate signed a critical minerals MoU to collaborate on exploration, research, and advanced technology adoption within OMC's mining leases, aligned with India's National Critical Mineral Mission launched in January 2025. In Australia, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries held a public hearing on social licence for critical minerals projects, with submissions noting that development is disproportionately occurring in socio-economically disadvantaged regional areas and that policy must ensure direct community benefits. Brazil's presidential runoff candidates both proposed critical minerals industrial policies, with each platform identifying lithium, niobium, graphite, copper, nickel, and rare earths as central to domestic value-chain development rather than raw-material export.

At the company level, MAX Power Mining appointed former Saskatchewan cabinet minister Rob Norris as CEO and is advancing natural hydrogen completions testing at its Lawson and Bracken discoveries in Saskatchewan while considering a spinout of its critical minerals portfolio, which includes a lithium discovery at the Willcox Playa project in Arizona. King Global Critical Minerals partnered with Quantum Energy for critical mineral processing at Black Canyon. Critical Minerals Group Ltd requested an ASX trading halt. Heliostar Metals and Kootenay Silver each presented growth plans at the Precious Metals & Critical Minerals Virtual Investor Conference, as did Kootenay Silver's growth push. On the recycling side, a WEEE Forum report found that fast-tech e-waste contains recoverable minerals — including manganese, gold, copper, and aluminum — with one million tons of critical raw materials embedded in Europe's 10.7 million tons of annual e-waste in 2022, yet more than half of Europeans fail to recycle such devices properly.

Comex copper for December delivery pulled back 0.8% to $6.6695 a pound on Wednesday after US inflation data raised the probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike, with the CME FedWatch tool placing odds of a late-October hike at 44%, double the prior day. A preliminary Escondida strike deal between BHP and the supervisors' union removed additional supply premium from the price, while unions at Antofagasta's Centinela returned to talks after a week-long stoppage and the open pit at Codelco's El Teniente remains shut following a deadly landslide. LME cash copper had settled at record highs of $14,822 and $14,741 on Monday and Tuesday respectively, and LME inventories fell seven straight sessions to 229,650 tonnes.

Three major forecasters have revised their 2026 copper price outlooks upward for the second time in three months. Macquarie lifted its 2027 average 14% to $12,750 and raised its long-term price to $10,500 per tonne in 2025 dollars, describing copper as "very binary" given Section 232 tariff uncertainty and projecting surpluses averaging more than 700,000 tonnes annually from 2027 as mine supply grows 4.9% next year. BMO Capital Markets, in contrast, raised its long-term price 47% to $16,000 per tonne in real terms, arguing that the near-2-million-tonne US stockpile represents a geographical redistribution of existing inventory rather than a true surplus, and that China will need to restock its strategic reserve. BMI maintained that the rally has extended beyond fundamentals but cut its 2026 mine supply growth forecast to 1.1% and sees a deficit widening to 1.7 million tonnes by 2035, projecting $17,000 per tonne by 2035. The International Copper Study Group, meeting this week, lifted its 2026 surplus estimate to 104,000 tonnes and held its 2027 figure at 368,000 tonnes.

The Comex-LME arbitrage that built the US stockpile has effectively closed on a spot basis, with the month-to-date average flipping to an 85-point LME premium from a 17-cent Comex premium in June. Aurubis has offered customers a record $347-per-tonne premium for 2027 supply, 10% above this year's level, citing warehouse depletion in Europe. Deutsche Bank's new head of metals research argued that the US and China could together hold 71% of global copper supply by year-end, and that copper could reach $10 per pound in the second quarter of 2027. On current valuations, RBC Capital Markets calculates that North American producers imply $5.03 copper at 1.0 times net asset value, well below the futures price near $6.70, even as Southern Copper has gained 44.1% year-to-date and Freeport-McMoRan 37.4%.

At the exploration stage, Red Mountain Mining returned rock chip samples up to 19.15% copper from the Mammoth prospect at its Pioneer Tungsten Project in Montana, with additional high-grade results of 6.72% copper at Greenstone and 3.92% copper at Glow Worm, all spatially associated with garnet skarn in a district that includes the historically significant Butte deposits 60 kilometres to the northeast; the company is now planning a surface sampling program targeting both tungsten and copper mineralisation and reviewing new copper asset acquisitions. Cornish Metals reported continued construction progress at its South Crofty tin project in Cornwall, where underground dewatering passed 400 metres, the production winder arrived on site, and bulk excavation for the processing plant is substantially complete, with the company expecting most equipment purchase orders placed by end-2026. At Rackla Metals' Lentung tungsten project in the Northwest Territories, the first four modern drill holes returned broad near-surface tungsten intervals with associated copper credits, including a highlight of 2.28% tungsten trioxide over 17.95 metres alongside 0.09% copper, as the company works to convert a historical Union Carbide resource into a compliant NI 43-101 estimate.

State-backed researcher Antaike has projected that China's refined cobalt output falls 14.5% year-on-year to 148,000 metric tons in 2026, a forecast delivered by chief expert Xu Aidong at an industry conference. Separately, spot pricing weakened on October 15, with Indonesian MHP cobalt FOB price declining $260/mt Co from the prior session, while Indonesian MHP nickel fell $65/mt Ni and high-grade nickel matte dropped $72/mt Ni on the same day.

On the exploration front, Latitude 66 (ASX: LAT) has commenced drilling to test conductors adjacent to its Finnish KSB gold-cobalt deposit as part of a broader program that includes a pre-feasibility study advancement; Managing Director Grant Coyle noted that targets are supported by historical gold intersections around conductive plates, not geophysics alone, and assay results have not yet been disclosed. The project's cobalt content positions KSB within the discussion of non-Chinese battery metal supply chains, particularly as Europe seeks to diversify sourcing closer to its manufacturers.

In catalysis research, a study published in Catalysis Letters demonstrates that doping cobalt oxide with just 1 wt% lanthanum into Co3O4 achieves 100% selectivity for preferential carbon monoxide oxidation across the 60–120°C operating range of proton exchange membrane fuel cells, with complete CO conversion reached at 140°C; higher lanthanum loadings of 2 wt% degraded performance by blocking pores and increasing hydrogen combustion to approximately 4%, while carbon dioxide in the feed stream continued to suppress activity by roughly 30% across all formulations.

EnergyX has secured a 10-year, 100,000-metric-ton offtake with trading house Trafigura covering battery-grade lithium carbonate from Project Black Giant in Chile and lithium hydroxide from Project Lonestar in Texas, with Trafigura committing to 66% of Phase 1 output from Black Giant and 30% from Lonestar; the agreement is also noted by Pantera Minerals as investee and is intended to support U.S. EXIM Bank financing for both sites targeting commercial production in 2028 and 2029 respectively. Rio Tinto reported that Sal de Vida achieved first production in Q2 2026 but that logistical constraints and slower-than-expected ramp-up will push full-year lithium output to the lower end of the 61,000-to-64,000-tonne guidance range, a figure confirmed in the company's Q3 2026 production update; meanwhile the US$2.5 billion Rincon project remains under construction with a 2028 production start planned at 60,000 tonnes per annum capacity, and formalization of joint ventures with Codelco at Salar de Maricunga and with Enami at Salares Altoandinos is expected between end-2026 and early 2027.

On the pricing front, the main lithium carbonate futures contract on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange closed below 110,000 yuan per tonne on October 12 — a single-session drop of 11.79% — driven simultaneously by a bearish Goldman Sachs assessment, weak downstream procurement sentiment, and news that Jiangte Electric's Qiankeng mine enters construction at 3 million tonnes per year planned capacity; an industry executive cited in the same report forecast prices will fall to the 50,000–80,000 yuan range next year. In the downstream electrolyte market, ternary, LFP, and LMO electrolyte prices held steady for the week of October 12–15 at 33,500, 32,900, and 25,050 yuan per tonne respectively, as cost pass-through lags and LiPF6 eased on falling lithium carbonate input costs. Albemarle shares rose after a Mizuho upgrade cited accelerating battery storage demand and tightening market balances. BlackRock increased its long position in Ganfeng H-shares to 8.87% as of October 9, up from 7.70%.

Among project-level developments, Controlled Thermal Resources appointed former California Lithium Ombudsman Bari Bean as up to 40% of lithium ions form anion-free multi-ion clusters in standard battery electrolytes at working concentrations, a result validated by NMR spectroscopy and machine-learning molecular simulations that conventional force fields entirely miss, with implications for solid electrolyte interphase formation and battery longevity; a separate teaser summarizes the same finding as clusters tied to battery life. A study in Nature Communications reports that pre-embedded iodine accelerates sulfur conversion in all-solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries, enabling fast charging and retention of cycling stability across multiple sulfide solid electrolytes. South Korean researchers developed a nickel oxide catalytic filtering process that removes lithium ions from perovskite solar cells, achieving 95% efficiency retention after 1,000 hours at 85°C/85% humidity and a 25.24% power conversion efficiency. An Australian consortium flew a 16-foot drone called Pegasus for nearly two hours on one lithium-sulfur pack over Queensland, covering more than 46 miles with charge remaining, with developers targeting 5–8 hour missions. Canadian company General Fusion reported its LM26 machine achieved 1.09 keV electron temperature using a 5.8-foot lithium wall collapsing at nearly 600 mph in roughly 3 milliseconds — the first such result via slow compression — with each shot consuming a replaceable solid lithium liner.

Two observational studies published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation found that children in California counties with lithium water concentrations at or above 32.6 parts per billion faced 60% higher adjusted odds of a Wolff-Parkinson-White diagnosis across a cohort of more than 2.3 million patients, with a New York external validation dataset supporting a 22% elevated odds at the 10 parts-per-billion threshold; the authors emphasize the observational design does not establish causation. A North Dakota fire department reported year-over-year increases in lithium-battery fires from consumer devices, and a Michigan landfill fire consuming 1.5 acres was attributed to improperly discarded lithium-ion batteries requiring three fire departments and heavy equipment to contain. India's NETRA survey projects that adoption of sodium-ion, vanadium redox flow, zinc-based, and iron-based technologies could reduce battery import dependence to 50% by 2035, down from a current 90% reliance on imported lithium-ion cells.

Pax Silica, the U.S. State Department-led coalition spanning 23 member countries and focused on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and critical minerals, continues to generate scrutiny in the Philippines following the country's April accession to the initiative. The coalition's centerpiece Philippine project is a 4,000-acre AI industrial hub in New Clark City, Tarlac, projected to attract tens of billions of dollars in investment and more than 100,000 jobs — a development President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. highlighted in his 2026 State of the Nation Address. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to attend the 49th ASEAN Summit in Manila next month, though it remains uncertain whether a formal Pax Silica deal will be signed at that gathering.

Despite the scale of the proposed investment, questions are intensifying over how Filipinos will benefit from the non-binding pact, with Philippine officials and industry leaders viewing it as a major opportunity while critics raise concerns about the distribution of gains. Filipino United Methodist leaders and ecumenical partners have convened forums to examine the initiative's social and environmental risks, with one gathering — the 2026 Day of Prayer for Just Peace in the Philippines in Quezon City — placing particular attention on impacts on Indigenous communities, natural resources, and Philippine sovereignty.

At those forums, scientist and advocate Giovanni Tapang warned that control of critical minerals, semiconductors, and AI has become central to global geopolitical and economic competition, raising concerns about energy and water demands, risks tied to mineral processing, and an extractive economic model. Davao Area Bishop Israel M. Painit articulated a framework centered on whether development is "responsible, sustainable, transparent and accountable," while National Council of Churches deputy general secretary Mervin Toquero pressed the fundamental question of who bears displacement costs — including farmers and Indigenous peoples — against the backdrop of large-scale strategic investment.

The U.S. military's longstanding role in shaping critical-minerals policy has drawn renewed attention, with the Department of War's investment in Brazil's Serra Verde mine tracing the origins of the term "critical minerals" to defence-driven resource imperatives. Separately, Brazilian Critical Minerals (ASX: BCM) received formal land access approval from Brazil's National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform for its Ema Rare Earth Project approvals in the Amazonas region, covering land within the Juma settlement near Apuí; the institute confirmed no objection to environmental licensing proceeding, though final ratification from the Brasília office and the environmental licence itself remain outstanding.

In Nebraska, NioCorp Developments (NASDAQ: NB) hosted federal and state officials at its Elk Creek Critical Minerals Mine and Processing Facility, where a signing ceremony was held with the Export-Import Bank of the United States advancing the project's federal financing review. The planned facility is designed to produce eight critical-mineral products — including niobium, scandium, titanium, dysprosium, and terbium — from a single domestic source, taking materials from mine to finished product without overseas processing. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Senators Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts attended the event, with officials framing the project as a direct counter to Chinese supply-chain dominance; the U.S. currently imports all domestic niobium and scandium and more than 85 percent of its titanium requirements. The project is projected to support approximately 1,200 construction jobs and 500 permanent positions over a 40-year mine life.

In Greenland, Greenland Mines Ltd (Nasdaq: GRML) welcomed President Trump's statements on expanded mineral exploration in Greenland, highlighting its Sarfartoq neodymium-praseodymium project and Skaergaard precious-metals project as prospective contributors to allied supply chains. The company's previously disclosed Initial Assessment for Sarfartoq estimates a high-case pre-tax NPV of approximately US$2.05 billion at an 8% discount rate, while a recent field campaign at Skaergaard completed 4,480 metres of diamond drilling to support metallurgical evaluation and engineering work. The company's stated "North Atlantic Critical Metals Corridor" strategy aims to link Greenlandic resources with processing infrastructure and industrial customers in allied jurisdictions.