The US Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued an expression of interest to US companies for potential transfer and recovery of surplus critical minerals and rare earth-related materials at five nuclear cleanup sites: Paducah (Kentucky), Portsmouth (Ohio), Oak Ridge (Tennessee), Nevada National Security Site and Moab (Utah). Targeted materials include aluminium, copper, lead, silver, platinum, tungsten, vanadium, fluorine, lithium hydride, chloride, selenium and cesium-137. Interested parties must supply their own extraction, processing and handling equipment, with DOE evaluating responses on technical capability and proposed end-use plans.

Thirty-seven detainees arrested in a Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps sweep on suspected illegal mining sites near Minna, Niger State, were found dead in custody, prompting a state-wide mining suspension and 24-hour curfew. Niger State, which reported 880 registered mining companies and cooperatives in 2024 but only 261 profiled, sits over 578 mineral titles including 369 for gold, with widespread unlicensed activity. Federal Mining Marshals, expanded to 2,570 officers, have flagged 374 suspected illegal sites since March 2024, yet prosecutions have yielded only five convictions from 165 cases involving 430 defendants.

Global mined copper output is on track for its first annual decline since 2017, with a 1.1% year-on-year drop in H1 2026 and about 600,000 tonnes of expected 2026 production lost from Grasberg and Kamoa-Kakula, equal to roughly 2.5% of global mine supply, Sprott reports. Chilean production, 23% of world mine output, fell 6.6% in H1 and 9.4% in July, with Cochilco now forecasting 5.27 Mt for 2026 and BHP’s Escondida guiding down to 1.0–1.1 Mt in FY 2027 despite record throughput. While refined copper still shows a modest surplus, US cathode imports hit a record 223,000 tonnes in July and COMEX inventories jumped 712% since February 2025 on tariff uncertainty, tightening freely available metal outside the US and boosting miners’ margins via lower treatment and refining charges.