Earlier in January 2026, the Australian Government announced new details of its $1.2 billion Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve which seeks to secure the supply of key minerals vital for the country’s economy, national security, and Future Made in Australia ambitions.
In the 2024-25 Budget, the government committed $22.7 billion over the next decade to build a Future Made in Australia with an agenda that aims to maximise opportunities as we move towards net zero and secure Australia’s place in a changing global environment.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on 12 January briefed the nation’s allies and trading partners on these new details in Washington DC, following Resources Minister Madeleine King’s engagement at G7+ meetings in Toronto late 2025.
The government says Australia’s abundant supply of critical minerals will be essential for global supply chains and for strengthening economic partnerships with other nations, and that is what the Treasurer’s visit to the US is working towards.
“In a rapidly changing world, the Strategic Reserve is all about safeguarding Australia’s future prosperity,” the Treasurer says.
“Ensuring we have a reliable reserve of these critical resources will strengthen supply chains and help to stabilise critical minerals markets.
“This means a more reliable supply of the resources we all need for the future.
“The world needs critical minerals – Australia has plenty of them and our critical minerals reserve will help us weather global economic uncertainty and help to boost trade and investment.”
The reserve will operate by securing rights to minerals produced and on-selling those rights to meet demand, which the government says will give an added boost to the country’s critical minerals sector and strengthen reliable supply chains for trading partners.
Part of the reserve includes $1 billion for transactions to be drawn from the expanded $5 billion Critical Minerals Facility, which provides government-backed loans and equity support for projects. A further $185 million is allocated for selective stockpiling of minerals, where required, and other implementation costs.
The reserve seeks to support collaboration with international partners to diversify critical minerals supply chains, including America, Japan, Republic of Korea, Europe, Canada and the UK. The government will advance consultation with international partners on developing collaborative efforts to maximise the impact of the CMSR on global supply chains.
“Developing the Strategic Reserve is another important step in Australia leading on critical minerals globally”
The government will bring forward enabling legislation this year to provide Export Finance Australia with additional powers to effectively support the Reserve.
Minister King says the Strategic Reserve’s initial focus will be on antimony, gallium, and rare earths to give added certainty to Australian projects, help attract further investment and help the sector deal with potential future market disruptions.
“The Strategic Reserve will provide vital support for Australian critical minerals mining and processing projects, creating jobs and ensuring Australia is at the centre of efforts to build stable and reliable supply chains for our international partners,” King says.
“From defence applications to clean manufacturing, critical minerals are at the heart of our economic and national security.
“Developing the Strategic Reserve is another important step in Australia leading on critical minerals globally.”
Ascending antimony
Antimony is used in household and commercial batteries, night vision equipment and high-performance flame-retardant materials.
As Mining.com.au reported in 2025, antimony has gone from niche to indispensable in short order, following China’s export ban and rising critical minerals policy urgency in the US.
Like the US, Australia’s domestic supply is virtually non-existent, with smelting capacity also constrained globally. Presently, about 90% of global antimony production is controlled by China, Russia, and Tajikistan, which is creating significant supply risks for Western nations such as Australia, Canada, and the US.
One player in the space is Pacgold (ASX:PGO), which on 22 December announced initial assay results from the 825m maiden reverse circulation drill program completed in November at the St George Gold-Antimony Project in northeast Queensland.
Initial assays from the first two holes intersected multiple thick continuous structures of high-grade antimony. The results from the remaining seven holes are expected in early 2026.
However, there are plenty of Australian mining companies with antimony exposure in North America. A significant ASX-listed player in this space is Felix Gold (ASX:FXG) which earlier this week began a hydrometallurgical pilot program, targeting first continuous antimony metal production from US domestic ore.
Around 300kg of massive stibnite from the Treasure Creek Project is in transition to Core Technologies. Initial testwork includes head characterisation, grind establishment, leach optimisation, liquid purification, and electrowinning trials.
The program builds on prior testwork that achieved military-grade antimony concentrate and 98% extraction on first-pass results that no other western project has publicly shown.
Similarly, Albright Metals (ASX:ABR) earlier in January started drilling at its Bond Road Antimony prospect, which is part of the Golden Pike Gold and Antimony Project in New Brunswick, Canada.
After the completion of gold drilling at its Vail Road Gold Deposit, the company is now progressing its antimony with its team in Canada. Drilling is aiming to target high-grade antimony veins within interpreted fault structures, believed to be the source of the high-grade antimony boulder samples and strong antimony soil anomaly identified at the prospect.
The Golden Pike Gold and Antimony Project is prospective for ‘high-grade’ gold, silver, and antimony at multiple locations on the property.
New Brunswick has a storied history of antimony mining and processing, in addition to hosting projects which are aiming to leverage the current global demand for the metal. Antimony was first discovered in the area in circa 1863, with mining and smelting undertaken at Lake George on and off between 1876 and 1996.
It was also produced as a byproduct from base metal smelting in the northern part of New Brunswick. More recently antimony has been discovered in south-central New Brunswick in a geological trend called the Annidale belt. This belt, which is sandwiched between the regional Taylor Brook Fault and the Albright Brook Fault, runs right across Albright Metals’ Golden Pike project.
Then there is Locksley Resources (ASX:LKY) which is advancing a range of workstreams to fast-track redevelopment plans and initiate extraction studies at the Desert Antimony Mine (DAM) prospect within the Mojave Project in California.
The ASX-listed emerging antimony developer is undertaking these workstreams in parallel to facilitate the extraction operations including development planning, in which additional information from ongoing technical work will be used in the planning assessment for the extraction of mineralisation.
Locksley has been engaging a mining engineering consultant with specialist expertise in the restart of historical mining operations.
Rare earths common in Australia
Rare earths are used to make high-performance permanent magnets, essential inputs to a range of technologies from fighter jets to MRI machines.
Monash University engineers have developed scalable technology that turns waste into a rich source of 17 rare earth elements via extractions from coal fly ash, mine tailings, and old electronic devices.
From coal fly ash alone, the university says it could recover up to 45,000 tonnes of rare earth metal per year. For reference, that is nearly double Australia’s production in 2021 which totalled about 24,000 tonnes, as reported by this news service.
In 2024, the global rare earth production reached 390,000 tons, as reported by the US Geological Survey. This is an increase from the previous year which totalled 376,000 tons. China is the dominant rare earth producer, producing up to 270,000 tons of the global supply in 2024.
One significant Australian player in the space is ABx Group (ASX:ABX) which earlier this month recorded ‘outstanding’ results from two rare earth column leach tests conducted by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) as part of ongoing metallurgical studies at the Deep Leads project in northern Tasmania.
Column tests were conducted on 26kg bulk samples and results indicate over 80% extraction of ‘high-value’ heavy rare earths, including dysprosium and terbium, exceeding the company’s expectations and confirming that high extractions can be achieved using a range of flowsheet options.
CEO Dr Mark Cooksey says that the results are better than anticipated, noting that “the results suggest that heap leach could be superior to tank leach”.
ABx is investigating heap leaching because it is potentially lower capital cost and more flexible than tank leaching, which is aligned with the company’s strategy to enter commercial production as soon as possible, Cooksey says.
The company is likely to engage ANSTO for another mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) sample from the product solutions from these column leach tests that are similar to the maiden sample produced in December, as reported.
Locksley, which in late 2025 completed data processing for the high-resolution helicopter-borne magnetic and radiometric survey finalised across the Mojave Project in California.
The survey has delivered a step-change in the quality of the data, as compared to historical data, with precision that enables the company to identify new high-priority targets for further investigation.
Included in the new targets is a pronounced thorium anomaly in the northeast of the North Block claims and an additional thorium anomaly trending parallel and 700m east of the El Campo Prospect.
Managing Director and CEO Kerrie Matthews says that the results are a “game-changer” for the Mojave Project.
Meanwhile, metallurgical tests at Victory Metals’ (ASX:VTM) North Stanmore Project in Western Australia confirmed leaching efficiency with 80% of rare earths extracted in 30 minutes.
The company says this “exceptional” results represents an eightfold improvement over earlier projections and “positions the project well ahead of global peers, where leaching can take 24 to 36 hours”.
Leaching is a crucial process in mining that involves extracting valuable minerals from ore using chemical solutions. Efficient leaching rates result in significantly reduced capex and opex and environmental benefits.
Victory Metals CEO Brendan Clark says this data strongly indicates North Stanmore’s potential to enable faster, cleaner, and more efficient processing than had initially been forecast, which has a “massive upside in terms of reducing opex and capex”.
Galloping towards gallium
Gallium is a key ingredient for advanced semiconductors used in radar systems and telecommunications.
Critica (ASX:CRI) is one of the more active in the space. In late 2025 it achieved a recovery of 63% gallium oxide when using leach solution from metallurgical testwork and geochemical analysis undertaken at its Jupiter Project in Western Australia.
The Jupiter Project hosts a resource of 1.8 billion tonnes @ 1,700 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxide at a 1,000ppm cut-off, averaging 39ppm gallium oxide and containing 70,000 tonnes of gallium.
CEO Jacob Deysel says the results paint a clear line-of-sight to byproduct gallium recovery, using its mixed rare earth product processing circuit.
“Achieving 63% gallium extraction into solution marks an important step in demonstrating coproduct potential from within our existing process, without changing scope or strategy,” Deysel says.
RareX (ASX:REE) is another with exposure to gallium. On 27 January this news service reported it is raising $5 million through a share placement to fund exploration at its portfolio of assets in Western Australia.
Future transactions under the reserve
Future transactions under the reserve will be led out of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, in close partnership with Export Finance Australia.
EFA has become a recurring theme in Australian critical minerals companies, particularly across rare earths, battery metals and downstream processing projects. A letter of support from the government-backed financier is often read as a major validation point — and sometimes priced in as if funding is already secured.
At its core, EFA involvement signals strategic alignment, not guaranteed capital. When EFA issues a non-binding letter of support or interest, it is effectively saying that a project fits Australia’s national interest mandate – exports, supply-chain diversification, allied markets, and sovereign capability.
It places a project on the radar of policymakers, lenders and international partners.
Several companies have been reported to have received or sought Export Finance Australia support or related export credit agency backing, including conditional letters of support, as part of their project financing strategies.
Viridis Mining and Minerals (ASX:VMM) received a non-binding letter of support from Export Finance Australia for up to US$50 million to assist with the execution phase of its Colossus Rare Earths Project in Brazil.
EFA’s potential debt funding is intended to cover services supply opportunities in the execution phase of Colossus, as reported by Mining.com.au.
Managing Director Rafael Moreno says securing the letter of support is the final cornerstone in the company’s Colossus debt financing strategy, adding that support from one of the world’s most respected export credit agencies further strengthen the project as a global strategic rare earth development.
“EFA’s letter of support adds a fourth and final international financing pillar to our capital strategy”
“EFA’s letter of support adds a fourth and final international financing pillar to our capital strategy, materially enhancing lender confidence and broadening our access to competitive, government-backed project finance,” Moreno says.
“Our immediate focus now shifts to finalising the appointment of the mandated lead arranger and commencing the consolidated due diligence process across all participating lenders.
“Combined with the recent grant of the environmental preliminary licence and the execution of our strategic equity investment, Colossus is exceptionally well-positioned as we advance final discussion with several strategic equity and offtake partners and progress towards final investment decision in H2 2026.”
Meteoric rise in EFA finance
Meteoric Resources (ASX:MEI), a rare earths developer, received a letter of support from EFA for up to US$50 million for its Caldeira Project in Brazil. This was reported alongside earlier EXIM Bank support, offering a combined foundation for project financing.
Managing Director Stuart Gale says the letter of support from EFA is a “strong vote of confidence in Meteoric’s strategy and capability to become the next major supplier of critical rare earth materials”.
Funding will be deployed to the Caldeira Project for Australian engineering, procurement, construction, and management contractors to reinforce a partnership between Australia and Brazil, where the project is located.
The company also received a $250 million letter of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) in March 2024. The company says this new letter of support from EFA, combined with EXIM’s financial support, provides a “solid foundation of the Caldeira Project”.
It is also in discussions with the Brazilian Development Bank and other export credit agencies for funding solutions regarding the Caldeira Project.
Meanwhile, Arafura Rare Earths’ (ASX:ARU) Nolans rare earths project secured funding from EFA, with a non-binding conditional letter of interest discussed in August 2025. This potential funding is intended to support development of the Northern Territory rare earth mine and processing project.
Any potential investment, and key terms, remains subject to ongoing discussions between Arafura and EFA.
The Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve supports Australia’s updated Critical Minerals Strategy and follows the landmark agreement signed with the United States last October which will support a pipeline of projects across critical minerals and rare earths valued at around $13 billion.
It also supports Australia’s collaboration with allies to diversify critical minerals supply chains, including Canada, Japan, Europe, and the UK.
The Australian Government says it is committed to seizing the new economic opportunities the global energy transition provides, with the critical minerals needed for items like batteries, solar panels and wind turbines, found right under our feet in Australia.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: ABx, Albright, iStock, Meteoric & Mining.com.au
