GEM Mining Consulting reveals there is a less visible vulnerability in Western critical mineral supply chains, following the shutdown of Canada’s only cobalt refinery, due to sweeping US sanctions targeting Cuban mining.
In late June 2026, Sherritt International shut down its Fort Saskatchewan operations in Alberta, Canada, after running out of the feed inventory it received from the Moa Mine in Cuba.
The shutdown is expected to continue until mining and processing resume at Moa. As a result, industrial capacity located in an allied country became exposed due to the origin of its raw material, corporate structure, and the financial arrangements that support it.
GEM Mining says the restriction does not necessarily operate through a physical ban on the Canadian plant, but rather the legal, financial, and reputational risk associated with Cuba.
The consulting firm notes that this case sends a “warning signal” to the West: “mineral security does not depend only on having plants, technology, or political allies, but also on having supply chains that are traceable, financeable, and legally viable”.
The Cuba–Canada case
Cuba’s mineral potential is considered concentrated in one dominant story, which is nickel-cobalt.
The Moa operation has been relevant as it combines mining, high-pressure acid leaching processing, and the production of mixed sulphide precipitate, an intermediate concentrate that is then shipped to Canada for final refining.
GEM Mining says this integration has allowed Cuba to monetise a type of ore that requires capital, technology, and a specialised industrial chain.
Between 2004 and 2013, contained nickel production remained relatively stable, at around 65,000–75,000 tonnes per year.
From 2014 onward, production fell between 50,000–55,000 tonnes, and continued to weaken close to 43,000 tonnes in 2023.
According to GEM Mining, cobalt shares a similar trajectory. After reaching close to 6,000 tonnes in the mid-2000s, production declined and stabilised at a lower range, between 3,000–4,000 tonnes in recent years.
The Cuba–Canada case shows the Western mirror image, as a US executive order targeting Cuba can end up affecting a Canadian company, a Canadian refinery, and non-US customers through banks, audits, insurance providers, suppliers, and compliance requirements.
For the West, the priority should not be only to announce new refineries, but to secure baskets of legal feedstock.
GEM Mining says, in this sense, the conclusion is twofold.
“Cuba has a strategic resource that today is producing below its potential; the West, for its part, has a critical minerals supply chain that is more vulnerable than the location of its industrial plants would suggest,” GEM Mining says.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Sherritt
