China said on Monday that it will strengthen controls over the full supply chains of strategic minerals exports as part of efforts to tighten its dominant grip on materials it deems crucial to its national interest…"Since the export control of strategic minerals has much to do with national security, strengthening the control of the whole export chain is the key," China's commerce ministry said in a statement…Those entities are required to adhere to a principle of "prevention first" to track the flow of strategic minerals and strictly prevent illegal outflows, it added…This comes after Beijing launched a special campaign last week to crack down on the smuggling of strategic minerals including gallium, germanium, antimony, tungsten and some rare earths.

Metals investor Cobalt Holdings said on Monday it plans to raise about $230 million in an initial public offering in London, potentially the largest listing in the UK capital since early 2024, in which Glencore will take a stake in the group…The company, which holds physical cobalt and has a contract to buy from Glencore, plans to use the majority of the IPO proceeds to buy an initial 6,000 metric tons of the key battery metal, worth around $200 million, from the global miner…Glencore and affiliates of investment firm Anchorage Structured Commodities Advisor have agreed to buy about 20.5% of the shares to be offered in the IPO, it said…Prices of cobalt, used in electric vehicle battery components and portable electronics, have been languishing at historically low levels, which the company says it believes offers a buying opportunity as it bets that prices will eventually rise…"We believe now is the right time to build a strategic stockpile of cobalt," Cobalt CEO Jake Greenberg said in a filing.

Chinese battery manufacturer CATL aims to raise at least HK$31.01 billion ($3.99 billion) in its Hong Kong listing, according to its prospectus filed on Monday, the largest listing globally so far in 2025…The electric-vehicle battery maker is selling 117.9 million shares at a maximum offer price of HK$263 per share, according to filings lodged with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange…CATL raising $4 billion means the listing is the biggest in the world so far this year, according to Dealogic data, beating JX Advanced Metal's $3 billion March IPO in Tokyo…More than 20 cornerstone investors, led by Sinopec and Kuwait Investment Authority, have subscribed to buy about $2.62 billion worth of CATL shares, the prospectus showed.

Scientists are working to find alternatives to rare-earth-based magnets that can function well in motors, because rare earth materials are expensive and can experience supply chain issues. However, finding a cost-effective, functional alternative material is challenging. A motor magnet needs strong magnetism that is unaffected by high temperatures and exposure to magnetic interference…Magnets have this property called coercivity. Coercivity is the measure of the magnet’s ability to resist demagnetization when it is exposed to an external magnetic field. High temperatures can cause magnets to lose their coercivity. Industrial motors run at very high temperatures, so a permanent magnet designed for an industrial motor needs to maintain its coercivity at very high temperatures…One solution to this challenge was discovered by a team of researchers and industry partners led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy Ames National Laboratory. They developed a rare-earth-free bonded magnet that not only retains its magnetism at high temperatures, coercivity nearly doubles with a 100°C (212°F) increase from room temperature…The magnet the team developed is a combination of manganese and bismuth (MnBi). The key to its performance lies in the preparation and fabrication process.

LONDON, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX: FT) (OTCQB: FTMDF) (“Fortune” or the “Company”) (www.fortuneminerals.com) is pleased to report that metallurgical test work validation is essentially complete for the bismuth circuits for the Company’s 100% owned NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper critical minerals project in Canada (“NICO Project”)…Bismuth Process Highlights…Improved bismuth leaching and cementation circuits with an expected reduction in capital and operating costs and higher metal recoveries…Efficient and cost-effective regeneration of ferric chloride lixiviant used to leach bismuth prior to cementation to reduce reagent costs and safely dispose of excess process water…Validation of high-quality 4N bismuth ingot production from smelting and refining bismuth cement.. Positive preliminary test results from blending Fortune bismuth concentrate and Rio Tinto bismuth oxychloride with no adverse impacts on product quality or metal recovery…Historic high bismuth prices from increasing demand and restricted supply…Exploratory testing of Rio Tinto bismuth oxychloride blended with Fortune bismuth concentrate at the estimated production ratio during operations produced a high quality bismuth cement with no adverse impacts on recoveries. Additional work is planned in collaboration with Rio Tinto aiming to maximize the blend-ratio and overall product output. The Rio Tinto feed is produced from waste streams at the Kennecott Smelter in Utah enhancing its goals for total orebody effectiveness and supporting domestic critical minerals production…Fortune is working with the Canadian and U.S. governments to expand domestic critical minerals production and enhance North American supply chain resilience and security. The Company has been awarded ~C$17 million of non-dilutive contribution funding from the U.S. Department of Defense through its Defense Production Act Title III program, Natural Resources Canada’s Global Partnerships Initiative and Critical Minerals Research Development and Demonstration programs, and Alberta Innovates Clean Resource Intake program…The NICO Project contains four payable metals, including the largest known resource of bismuth in the world. Bismuth has unique physical and chemical properties that are essential for important industrial and technological uses, but the supply chains are vulnerable to disruption because China controls over ~90% of refined bismuth supply. Consequently, bismuth is identified on both the Canadian and U.S. government’s Critical Minerals Lists. Notably, China recently imposed controls over the export of bismuth and other critical minerals resulting in shortages of supply and a precipitous increase in price.