Deep Sea Minerals has secured a “substantial compliance” determination from NOAA under the US Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, advancing its application to explore polymetallic nodules in international waters. The proposed concession covers about 150,000 km² of the Pacific Ocean, targeting nodules containing nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese for electrification, energy and defence supply chains. The company says this makes it one of only three publicly traded or public-market pathway firms to reach this stage in NOAA’s DSHMRA regulatory process, as the agency moves to accelerate licence reviews.

Cornish Tin & Lithium’s Phase 3 drilling at the Tregonning project in West Cornwall has extended the lithium-bearing Newall Formation to a strike length of about 3.27 km from Tregonning North to Tregonning South, with multiple lithium-enriched aplite‑pegmatite sheets at varying depths. Earlier intersections at Tregonning North included 0.3 m grading 1.33% Li₂O, with a peak of 1.42% Li₂O, and the new work suggests a materially larger lithium inventory. Drilling at Tregonning South also defined a new tin system with at least ten lodes, returning up to 2.69% Sn in Norcross No.1, 1.26% Sn in Rib North and 1.68% Sn in Rib South.

The US Department of Energy has awarded $67 million to ElementUSA and Colorado School of Mines to design, build and operate a rare earth processing plant in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, using an integrated hydrometallurgical–pyrometallurgical flowsheet that co-produces pig iron and recovers scandium, gallium, germanium, yttrium and multiple REEs from bauxite residue. ElementUSA plans a phased build-out to a 1 Mtpa feed facility with an estimated $1.1 billion capex, underpinned by ~34 Mt of proven residue reserves secured under exclusive access. At full scale, the project could supply 45–385% of current US annual demand for several listed critical elements, turning a legacy alumina waste stream into a strategic feedstock.