USA critical minerals if you are interested.4 Dec 2025 20:38
us critical mineral quality story basket:
antimony / tungsten (defense sensitive)
$ppta – stibnite gold in idaho. ~4.8moz gold plus the largest domestic antimony resource. got $75m from the pentagon and an exim loi for $1.8b debt. gold pays for the mine, antimony is the strategic kicker.
$uamy – owns the only us antimony smelter (montana) plus a mine in mexico. was a low-quality operator for years, but that flipped with a $245m sole-source dla contract.
$nva – estelle project in alaska. started as a pure gold story (~9.9moz), now pushing the stibium and styx antimony targets as a second pillar.
$alm – tungsten exposure. operating in portugal and building the sangdong mine in south korea, one of the largest tungsten deposits globally. has a floor price on product to protect downside and picked up a tungsten project in montana, likely positioning for future us/dod backing.
nuclear fuel / enrichment
$uuuu – owns white mesa mill in utah, the only fully operating conventional uranium mill in the us. effectively a processing monopoly. using the same mill to move into rare earths via monazite sands, turning it into a higher margin critical minerals hub.
$uec – unhedged uranium producer. roughly $321m in cash and liquid assets, zero debt. did not lock in long term low price contracts, so they get full upside to spot. bought rio tinto’s sweetwater assets in wyoming, adding a big resource base.
$leu – only us player licensed to produce haleu for next gen smrs. acts more like a government contractor with a multi-billion dollar backlog.
$aec – more speculative. owns the shootaring canyon mill, one of only three licensed uranium mills in the us. if they actually restart it in a tighter uranium market, the asset becomes very strategic.
battery supply chain (lithium, boron, graphite)
$ionr – rhyolite ridge in nevada. doe signed a $996m loan. lithium plus a big boron credit. boron revenues cover most operating costs so they can still make money even if lithium sits around the low end of the cycle.
$sli – dle angle. partnered with equinor which massively de-risks execution. also has a $225m doe grant. good combo of tech + balance sheet support from partners.
****co: abat
rare earths
$mp – only scaled rare earth producer in the west. actually profitable. building a magnet plant in texas with dod support to bring more of the value chain onshore.
$nb: the only shovel-ready project (elk creek) in the us capable of producing niobium (stealth steel) and scandium (aerospace alloys) at scale. backed by an $800m exim loan letter and a $10m dod grant. elk creek also contains heavy rare earths (dysprosium/terbium). if the us government implements price floors for these magnet metals (as rumored under new policy proposals), the project's npv would likely re-rate violently upwards.
$usar (usa rare earth); not the best one: the magnet maker. they are building the first fully integrated "mine-to-magnet"
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