Nth Cycle has signed a binding 10-year offtake term sheet with Glencore worth an estimated $1 billion, securing 100% of black mass feedstock from Glencore’s US shredding network for Project SHIELD, its planned South Carolina battery materials refinery. The deal covers offtake of high-purity mixed hydroxide precipitate (nickel/cobalt MHP) and battery-grade lithium carbonate, and includes assessing an existing Glencore US site to accelerate construction alongside Nth Cycle’s 21,000-square-foot Fairfield, Ohio facility. Both parties will also evaluate deploying Nth Cycle’s portable ‘Oyster’ electrochemical refining system for black mass, copper and rare earth recovery in Europe and globally.

Military Metals has secured a C$100,000 Mineral Resource Development Fund grant from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources to support a seven-hole, 1,750 m diamond drilling programme at the past-producing West Gore antimony-gold project in the Meguma camp. Drilling will test down-plunge extensions below historical mine workings and the Brook Vein stope, following historical intercepts up to 10.6 g/t gold and 3.4% antimony over 7.1 m. West Gore previously produced an estimated 7,761 t of 46% Sb concentrate and 7,149 oz gold but has seen only minor work since the 1960s.

Mining companies in Burkina Faso and Mali have built “mini armies” and effectively turned mine sites into “mini states” as central governments and local militaries lose control of territory, says George McLeod of Critical Risk Team. Operations are being maintained by focusing narrowly on secure logistics corridors for inbound supplies and outbound concentrate, allowing projects to function in what he calls a “complete and total power vacuum”. McLeod also expects China’s dominance in rare earths refining to erode within about three years as Australia, the US and Brazil commission new processing capacity and substitution technologies reduce demand.