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.

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.

Blue Moon Metals’ Springer project in Nevada returned a 7 metre interval grading 1.28% WO₃ and 0.01% Mo from 160 metres in surface hole NM-13, plus 24.25 metres at 0.53% WO₃ and 0.12% Mo in NM-44, from a relogging and re-assay campaign now 64% through 18,000 metres of historical core. The 4,560-hectare skarn project, with a historical 355,000 tons at 0.537% WO₃ and a 1,200 long ton/day mill built by General Electric, is being evaluated for restart in Q4 2027. US BLM approval for 13 new drill pads enables a planned 67,000-metre diamond drilling programme on public land, materially expanding step-out and infill options.