Japan's Deep-Sea Drilling Vessel Successfully Trial Mines Rare Earth Mud from 6,000-Meter Depth

To protect manufacturers from supply disruptions, US President Trump is preparing to launch a critical minerals strategic reserve plan with a total investment of $12 billion. The White House confirmed on Monday the launch of "Project Vault," with $1.67 billion coming from private investment and $10 billion from loans provided by the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM). These funds will be used to purchase and stockpile minerals required by the automotive industry, high-tech enterprises, and other industrial users. This model draws on the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve approach but focuses on stockpiling materials needed for products ranging from mobile phones to jet engines, such as gallium and cobalt.

For NEVs, the core impact of Project Vault does not lie in how much it drives up mineral prices in the short term, but in the following: improved certainty of subsidy compliance, reduced supply disruption risks at key nodes, and the formation of a more stable structural price spread between the compliant and non-compliant supply chains.

[SMM Flash: Cyclic Materials to Build Rare Earth Recycling Plant in South Carolina] Canadian rare earth and metal recycling enterprise Cyclic Materials announced plans to invest over $82 million to construct a rare earth recycling plant in South Carolina. This facility is the company's second announced synergistic plant in the US, with an initial capacity to process 2,000 mt of magnetic material, and the company plans to increase its annual processing capacity to 6,000 mt. The company also stated that the new plant is initially expected to produce 600 mt of mixed rare earth oxides annually, with future capacity potentially expandable to 1,800 mt to meet growing market demand.