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Happy Creek Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: HPY) may be small in market capitalization, but under its new leader the company is staking its claim at the center of one of the geopolitically charged commodities of our time.Stephen Gray, who only joined the Vancouver-area junior explorer as President and CEO in November, didn’t take the traditional route to the corner office. “I’m a mining engineer by background,” he told InvestorNews host Darren Cudmore, recalling stints on the iron ore frontlines with Rio Tinto in Australia before shifting to M&A work with Kinross Gold and Centerra Gold. “It’s a big change to go from a big company to a small company,” Gray said, “but it’s an exciting opportunity for me to do something more entrepreneurial and spread my wings.”That entrepreneurial spirit could not come at a more opportune moment for Happy Creek. Tungsten, a metal prized for its exceptional hardness and density, has seen a surge in market interest—its price roughly tripling over the last year, and Happy Creek’s share price more than doubling in the same period. “Tungsten is a niche commodity, absolutely, but it’s a very important commodity,” Gray said. Unique industrial uses in drill bits and machine tools, and strategic demand in tank armor and jet engines, have elevated its status to that of a critical mineral, he explained. Yet global supply remains heavily concentrated in China—“about 80% of world tungsten production,” he noted—and there are no operating tungsten mines in North America.Happy Creek’s flagship Fox Tungsten Project in British Columbia positions the company squarely within that supply gap. The deposit—a skarn with a NI 43-101 mineral resource of about a million tonnes at roughly 1% tungsten—stands among the highest grade tungsten projects globally. A modest drill campaign this past summer “was successful in incrementally extending mineralization,” Gray said, with assays confirming continuity of high-grade zones and demonstrating that the deposit remains open along strike and at depth.Those drilling results were backed by Happy Creek’s December 17, 2025 news release, which reported significant intercepts from its 2025 program. Highlights included 1.18 meters grading 6.83% WO₃ from 31.2 meters downhole at the RC zone, along with multiple other strong intercepts that expanded the calc-silicate horizon and confirmed potential for additional horizons beneath Deception Mountain.For Gray and his team, the goal now is scale. “This coming summer, we’re hoping to do a much larger program at Fox, with the goal of maximizing the size of the resource,” he said, pointing to plans not just to extend the mineralization footprint but to update the resource and undertake a preliminary economic assessment. That path, he said, will “start changing the conversation from tons and grade to dollars—and shift the story from an exploration story to a development story.”Financially, Happy Creek is positioned to take the next steps, but not without fresh capital. With roughly $2 million in cash and another $2 million in marketable securities—shares received from the sale of its Highland Valley property to Metal Energy Corp.—Gray said the company has runway for an initial push. “We do have a strong balance sheet,” he noted, but added that to execute an expanded ~$10 million summer program the company is “looking at doing another raise in the spring—likely another $5–$7 million.”Disclaimer: Video interviews and other video content published by InvestorNews are produced as part of paid media services. The issuer or company featured in this video has compensated InvestorNews for the creation and publication of such content. The views expressed in these interviews are those of the interviewees or guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of InvestorNews, its writers, or its affiliates. For full details, please refer to our complete disclaimer at www.investornews.com/disclaimer

From the outset of his conversation with InvestorNews.com host Tracy Hughes, Anthony Durkacz pulled no punches: the fight his company has launched against alleged market predators isn’t just another legal footnote—it’s a battle for integrity on Main Street as much as for investors in speculative biotech. “This is a David versus about 13 Goliaths,” Durkacz said, describing Quantum BioPharma Ltd.'s (NASDAQ: QNTM | CSE: QNTM) class action lawsuit seeking USD $700 million in damages against Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Royal Bank of Canada and their broker-dealer subsidiaries over alleged stock spoofing and price manipulation that he argues has grievously harmed everyday investors.Quantum BioPharma, a NASDAQ-listed biotech focused on developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis — most notably its lead compound Lucid-MS — has, Durkacz explained, encountered hurdles that go beyond scientific complexity. The company’s intention “is to try to deliver something that no MS patient has today: the ability to regain mobility or control that has been lost due to the disease,” he told Hughes, pointing to a mission that seeks to tackle one of medicine’s most stubborn challenges.But Durkacz pivoted quickly to what he described as a “game changer” outside the lab: spoofing — “an act of stock manipulation, which is illegal today in Canada and the United States,” designed to create a false impression of market demand or supply. In his telling, large fraudulent asks flooded the order book, disappeared once smaller trades executed, and then mirrored bids would appear — a pattern he believes was intended “to make the market believe that the stock is heading in a certain direction.”For the lay investor, Durkacz said, the practice looks like large banks, brokers or certain clients of theirs placing orders they never intend to fulfill purely to influence sentiment. That’s why Quantum BioPharma, represented by experienced legal teams on a contingency basis, is pushing the lawsuit that covers shareholders dating back to January 6, 2021, through October 15, 2025. “We believe we have very strong evidence,” he said, and noted that the firm sometimes involves world-renowned litigators such as Christian Attar Law and Grant & Eisenhofer, which have recently filed a broader related class action.Durkacz underscored how consequential this effort could be for small-cap companies and their investors. “The people most harmed are everyday investors — mom-and-pop investors — who take the brunt of the losses,” he told Hughes, describing spoofing not as an isolated issue but a “continuing epidemic” that undermines the ability of entrepreneurial enterprises to survive.Yet even amid legal turbulence, Quantum BioPharma is making strides in its core scientific pursuits. Recent corporate updates show the company has completed key 180-day toxicity and toxicokinetic studies for Lucid-MS, milestones intended to support an Investigational New Drug application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and facilitate a Phase 2 clinical trial in multiple sclerosis patients.Durkacz spoke passionately about the potential human impact of that work, noting animal models in which subjects previously unable to walk regained mobility — dramatic results that underscore the urgency of bringing such therapies to patients. While much of the industry’s attention is on science and regulatory paths, Durkacz sees the company’s legal action as another front in the broader struggle to safeguard small-cap markets. Educating investors, he said, is a crucial part of that effort; information is being made available through Quantum’s own website under a section called “Quantum vs. Banks.”

The markets woke up to a headline that reads like a time-warp: U.S. strikes in Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro reportedly captured, and Washington openly debating what it means to “run” a sovereign country—temporarily, of course. Reuters reported regional condemnation within hours, including Brazil warning the United States had crossed “an unacceptable line.” AP, in parallel, described a pre-dawn raid and the administration’s stated intent to seize control of Venezuela’s political transition and oil flows.In an InvestorNews conversation post Trump news conference with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Christopher Ecclestone of Hallgarten + Company didn’t reach for ideology. He reached for history—and for a warning label.“It’s early days yet,” he told me. Anyone assuming “it’s all over by the shooting” is “probably mistaken,” because regime change “has generally resulted in way more complications than whoever has come up with the idea has accounted for.” In his view, Venezuela “almost seems too easy,” and “that is a fatal trap.”Ecclestone’s first frame is not moral, but mechanical: power doesn’t disappear when a leader is removed. “Don’t think you’ve won the war by just taking out one guy,” he said. Maduro, he argues, “was not [a] Stalin-like figure that was all-encompassing.” He was “part of a whole structure,” with “lots of mini Maduros out there” and a vice president “who can potentially step into the role.”That point matters because Washington’s public rationale is already under strain. Trump has leaned heavily on narco-terrorism charges; the legal debate is immediate, loud, and global. Ecclestone was blunt: “The drug argument is definitely feeble.” Compared with Mexico or Colombia, he said, Venezuela “doesn’t even register on the Richter scale.” He went further: calling the legal case fragile enough that Trump “risks actually being laughed out of court” unless the administration can offer something stronger than the claim “the leader of a South American country controls some machine guns.”“So you are right,” and then adds: “It really… it’s all about oil and gas and absolutely nothing to do with drugs.”The oil facts are not subtle. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proved reserves—about 303 billion barrels, per Reuters—yet years of mismanagement, underinvestment, and sanctions have left production far below historic peaks. U.S. companies have still orbited the sector: Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) has operated via licenses and joint ventures with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), even as U.S. policy tightened and loosened over time. For mining investors, Ecclestone’s memory snaps back to a scar: Crystallex International Corporation (TSX: KRY) (NYSE Amex: KRY) and the Las Cristinas gold saga—an emblem of what happens when geology meets politics. Venezuela expropriated Crystallex’s interest in Las Cristinas; arbitration later awarded damages, and the dispute became a case study in sovereign risk. “Since then,” Ecclestone said, “mining investors have given Venezuela a wide berth.”And yet, the temptation is obvious: the Guayana Shield. Ecclestone notes that Guyana has become “one of the hot spots of gold,” and Venezuela controls part of the same ancient geological province. “So I think it’s the gold and the oil and gas rather than the drugs,” he said—less a thesis than a map.Then he landed on the line investors should tape above their screens: “Any politician that steps into the quicksand ends up sinking.” If today’s intervention is meant to be swift, bankable, and clean, Ecclestone’s view is the opposite: messy, contingent, and structurally unresolved. “Time will tell,” he said—and the clock, in his mind, is not measured in victory speeches, but in who actually governs Caracas “over the next week or two.”

China’s manipulation of the rare earths market isn’t a policy glitch — it’s a geopolitical weapon. In a wide-ranging discussion with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Jack Lifton, Co-Chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), portrayed 2026 as a year in which “more of the same” from Beijing will keep Western planners off balance, with China “playing us” through erratic export permissions that turn production planning in North America into “chaos.” Lifton’s blunt verdict on China’s tactics underscores a deeper truth: the world remains structurally dependent on Chinese control of rare earths and processing, even as that dominance becomes a tool in geopolitical competition rather than simple commerce.Lifton did not mince words on the broader strategic landscape either. On the question of Canada versus the United States in rare earth development, he highlighted a paradox: Canada “has the largest number of rare earth discoveries of any country in the world” and many “excellent” deposits, yet what these resources lack is “capital,” a gap that leaves Canadian projects more promising in geology than in execution. He quipped about his long tenure observing Washington policy, saying, “I’ve only been in this country for 85 years — I haven’t figured out how Washington works yet,” signaling a frustration with U.S. governmental inertia.His critique of Washington’s approach to rare earth policy was withering. Lifton characterized government investments as “a total waste,” arguing that policymakers “don’t understand the details of rare earth supply chains” and are naively “throwing money against the wall, predominantly at mining.” In his view, that focus misses the true chokepoint: downstream processing. “Separation, metals, alloys, magnet manufacturing — that’s where the problem is,” he said, warning that current initiatives are driven by superficial impressions rather than a grasp of complex technical and economic bottlenecks.On recycling — often touted as a strategic hedge — Lifton was equally skeptical. “Recycling only makes sense when the recycled product costs less than the new product,” he stated, contending that none of the ventures he’s reviewed meet that basic criterion. His dismissal highlights a broader theme of economic realism over policy wish-fulfillment that ran through the interview.Lifton also turned a critical eye toward international partnerships. He described U.S.–Australia collaboration as stuck in a “Mexican standoff,” noting that Australian projects with massive government backing — such as Iluka Resources Ltd.’s (ASX: ILU) magnet supply chain investment — wait for U.S. capital to step up before they proceed. Africa’s wealth of critical minerals, he observed, is undermined by instability, and in the Middle East he sees “money” but “no brains” for developing the needed infrastructure beyond oil and gas. He predicted that Brazil, though rich in resources, won’t be a meaningful supplier for “five to ten year window” given the pace of project development.Lifton’s assessment of various prospects was candid: Greenland’s rare earth aspirations are “a rare earth joke,” deep-sea mining could be a frontier to watch as Japan invests heavily in sediment extraction, and Russia’s magnet industry plans are unlikely to materialize because of systemic economic constraints. Disclaimer: Video interviews and other video content published by InvestorNews are produced as part of paid media services. The issuer or company featured in this video has compensated InvestorNews for the creation and publication of such content. The views expressed in these interviews are those of the interviewees or guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of InvestorNews, its writers, or its affiliates. For full details, please refer to our complete disclaimer at www.investornews.com/disclaimer

Jack Lifton, Co-Chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), settled into his chair with a frank verdict on 2025: “Was it a good year for rare earths or not? I don’t really think so, Tracy. I think there were too many choices presented to the public and a delusion, therefore, of well-focused capital in this segment.” Lifton’s measured skepticism contrasted sharply with the heady optimism that greeted rare earths at the start of the year, when critical minerals were being hailed as geopolitical currency and government spending surged. “Critical minerals are no longer a niche industrial concern — they’re the currency of geopolitical power,” wrote Hughes earlier in 2025. Yet Lifton — renowned for his deep expertise and razor-sharp analysis — was unmoved by the hype. “I don’t really think there were any surprises that we didn’t already have on our radar,” he reflected. “My thought about 2025 is this: we are now entering a period of Darwinian evolution in the rare earth permanent magnet space.” In his telling, markets not only correct but select: “Nature provides continuous variation of species … the survivors are naturally selected by the environment.”On that evolutionary note, he argued that much of the enormous policy and capital flurry amount to overcapacity. “Companies now on center stage for rare earths in North America have combined outputs of many many times this demand,” he said, pointing to an anticipated supply that far outstrips realistic market needs.At stake, he said, was the fate of the electric vehicle boom — long a poster child for rare earth demand. “I personally believe that the age of the EV in North America is basically over,” Lifton declared. “The EV will now be just another niche product … luxury products in the North American automotive industry usually are at 5 to 8% of the total.” Without the EV growth narrative, he added, magnet demand reverts to legacy applications — motors for appliances, displays, and established industrial uses.Lifton’s critique was not merely academic; it echoed broader 2025 trends. Washington and allied capitals shifted into industrial policy overdrive, deploying billions in subsidies and supply-chain support — from US$100 billion strategic minerals commitments to new processing incentives — yet real end-market demand for rare earth magnets remained murky. In Lifton’s view, the so-called rare earth resurgence of 2025 may ultimately be remembered not as a boom, but as a sorting process — where only the most resilient, efficient producers survive in a Darwinian marketplace increasingly divorced from easy geopolitical narratives. For more informatoin on the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI) go tohttps://criticalmineralsinstitute.com/ or email us at info@criticalmineralsinstitute.com

From the opening lines of the InvestorNews.com interview, it was clear that CleanTech Vanadium Mining Corp. is staking a bold claim in America’s bid for critical mineral independence, a theme now underscored by recent strategic acquisitions and royalty expansions that together reshape the narrative around domestic fluorspar supply. Bekzod Kasimov, the company’s Business Development Manager, described CleanTech’s latest move: “we recently announced the acquisition of roughly 1,600 acres in Illinois… we acquired areas that have been in production historically”, surrounding the Hicks Dome deposit, one of the largest known fluorspar and rare earth element occurrences in the United States — land that now boosts the company’s Illinois holdings to roughly 2,800 acres and, combined with Kentucky, more than 17,500 acres across the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District. The significance of that move is not lost on CleanTech leadership, who have emphasized the size and potential of the holdings; according to the company’s CEO, the land position is now “larger than Manhattan.” Kasimov anchored the strategic rationale in the broader supply-and-demand challenges facing critical minerals, noting that fluorspar is defined as a critical mineral by the U.S. Geological Survey and that “supply of many critical minerals is highly concentrated, particularly in countries like China, and is often used as leverage in negotiations with the United States and Europe.” He pointed to U.S. policy pushing for diversified supply sources — a backdrop that has made the company’s acquisitions timely and potentially transformative. Kasimov recounted that CleanTech’s interest in fluorspar grew from observing market dynamics: “China became a net importer of fluorspar… reflected in pricing. In 2025 alone, the price of fluorspar increased by more than 40% to 50% and is currently trading around US$500 per tonne for acid-grade fluorspar,” underscoring the commodity’s rising economic and strategic value. He emphasized the breadth of fluorspar’s applicability — from **semiconductor manufacturing to renewable energy and uranium enrichment — and insisted that “fluorspar cannot be replaced” in these critical industrial processes.Asked about how he came to work in this space, Kasimov highlighted the company’s experience in navigating U.S. regulatory frameworks, referencing the positive Record of Decision on the Environmental Impact Statement at the Gibellini Vanadium Project in Nevada, another CleanTech asset classified as a critical mineral project under U.S. policy. “Because of that experience, it was a natural choice to focus on the United States,” he explained, describing Illinois and Kentucky as historically productive fluorspar regions with significant untapped resources. Kasımov also touched on the broader geological promise of Hicks Dome, noting that beyond fluorspar, there is potential for rare earth element discoveries — particularly heavy rare earths such as dysprosium, scandium, yttrium, and possibly germanium — bolstering the technical allure of the company’s expanded land position. While confirming the certainty of fluorspar within the acquired areas, he distinguished that rare earth potential is based on geological inference and historical context. Financial strategy came into focus when Kasimov explained the expanded royalty agreement with Oracle Commodity Holding, which covers a 2% net smelter return royalty on minerals from CleanTech’s properties, including the newly acquired Illinois parcels, in exchange for financing that helps underwrite project development — a mechanism he described as one of the tools mining companies use to fund growth.

A mineral deposit that can pay you eight ways is no longer just geology — it’s risk management, and Nicole Brewster wants investors to hear that as plainly as possible. In an interview with InvestorNews.com host Tracy Hughes, Brewster — President, CEO and Director of Renforth Resources Inc. (CSE: RFR) — speaks from the particular perch of a junior explorer in Québec’s Abitibi mining district: close enough to established infrastructure to feel the pull of development, small enough to live and die by timelines, assays and retail conviction. Renforth’s story, as Brewster tells it, is deliberately split between two kinds of appetite: gold, with the wholly owned Parbec Gold Deposit beside Agnico Eagle’s Canadian Malartic mine, hosting 265,800 ounces in Measured and Indicated and 97,000 ounces Inferred in an open-pit scenario using US$2,100 gold; and “critical minerals,” with the district-scale Malartic Metals Package and its Victoria polymetallic deposit, where the company has reported an initial NI 43-101 inferred resource of 125 million tonnes grading 0.15% NiEq.Hughes, who says she recently saw Brewster in London “really talking about nickel and zinc and your polymetallic deposit,” asks the practical question first: “Where should we start?” Brewster steers the conversation to the latest update. “We announced that the nickel-zinc polymetallic resource calculation excluded platinum and palladium,” she says, describing geologists “in the field pulling witness core for testing for platinum and palladium, which we know to be present.” The point is not decorative: “the value of those metals — any occurrence — does have a material effect on the value per tonne of the mineralized package that is Victoria,” she adds, promising that “the next MRE will reflect those PGE metals as well.” The company’s December update similarly says Victoria drilling core is being reviewed for PGE assaying, noting that prior work confirmed platinum and palladium, but that sampling density was insufficient for inclusion in the initial NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate, with the expectation those metals will be included in the next technical report.What Brewster calls “of great significance” is the mechanics of credibility: an NI 43-101 technical report that “speaks to the entirety of the property,” and places Victoria inside a larger, older district narrative. Renforth has said the NI 43-101 technical report supporting the initial Victoria inferred resource has been filed on SEDAR+ and made available through the company’s materials. Brewster’s tour through the package is brisk and map-like: “In the north, we have our Beaupré Copper proximal to the Cadillac Break,” a central “Lac Gold Zone” with “relatively low-grade but long-interval gold intercepts,” and then the southern structures — Lalonde and Victoria — that she suggests are “probably arms of a fold whose nose is right off our property on our neighbour Agnico Eagle’s Canadian Malartic ground.” The technical report itself describes the Malartic Metals Package as 426 map-staked claims totaling 24,143 hectares — the footprint for the next set of drill pads.

The energy transition’s next choke point may be a sheet of glass.Homerun Resources Inc. (TSXV: HMR | OTCQB: HMRFF) is trying to make that glass story legible to investors by starting where glass begins: silica. The company describes itself as “building the silica-powered backbone of the energy transition” across four verticals—Silica, Solar, Energy Storage and Energy Solutions—anchored by a “high purity low iron silica resource in Bahia, Brazil,” and a plan to turn raw material into the quieter components that let clean power scale.In a recent interview with InvestorNews.com host Tracy Hughes, the tone was set by velocity. “You have literally put out half a dozen news releases in less than 12 days into December,” she told Brian Leeners, Homerun’s chief executive. Leeners didn’t apologize for the pace; he framed it as operating discipline. “The news releases are really just a demonstration that we’re not capital-dependent relative to moving the company forward,” he said, arguing that the constraint is “brain power relative to execution and planning,” not whether the company can “wait for money to drill holes.”The money, though, is part of the proof. Leeners walked Hughes through a $6 million financing that he called “a first of its kind relative to the TSX Venture Exchange,” describing a process that took Homerun “almost six months”—and, he suggested, may have quietly improved the path for whoever tries it next. “I’m actually expecting a fee from any other TSX Venture company that follows us,” he joked, before noting the follow-on $3 million placement and a second tranche of about $1.5 million. The point, he insisted, was sequencing: “Now we’ve closed both of those and are moving forward.”Underneath the financings is a pitch that sounds deceptively simple until you spend time with it: silica is not one market. “Silica is a pyramid-priced, pyramid-quality product,” Leeners said, separating it from the metals investors instinctively compare it to. And it is, he added, “very logistically intense,” because unlike a high-value concentrate, “you’re moving the entirety of the resource.” Logistics isn’t an afterthought; it becomes a competitive barrier, a cost structure, an argument about whether a deposit is merely large or actually useful.It is also, in Leeners’ telling, the overlooked critical input hiding in plain sight. “Silica is probably the most unrecognized critical material,” he said. “It’s a key component in solar—not only the glass, but also the silicon, which is the essence of solar,” and increasingly relevant to batteries and high-end technology, “including high-end optical uses like optical fiber.” Then he sharpened the idea into something closer to a thesis: “It’s a key component of the electrification of the planet.”The most concrete version of that thesis, for Homerun, is antimony-free solar glass—and the company’s insistence that its Brazilian silica can reach solar-glass specifications with unusually modest processing. Hughes brought up the company’s recent “positive results,” and Leeners pointed to third-party confirmation work by Minerali Industriali Engineering in Italy. “It was really exciting to get them to confirm what we already knew—that we have incredibly high-quality silica sitting in the ground,” he said. What mattered, he argued, was the pathway: “washing, sorting, and agitating the product” to get “to solar glass.” Disclaimer: Video interviews and other video content published by InvestorNews are produced as part of paid media services. The issuer or company featured in this video has compensated InvestorNews for the creation and publication of such content. The views expressed in these interviews are those of the interviewees or guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of InvestorNews, its writers, or its affiliates. For full details, please refer to our complete disclaimer at www.investornews.com/disclaimer

Cesium is what happens when a “minor metal” stops behaving like a footnote and starts acting like a constraint.On InvestorNews.com, host Tracy Hughes opened her conversation with Robin Dunbar—President, CEO, and Director of Grid Metals Corp. (TSXV: GRDM | OTCQB: MSMGF)—by placing the company where it actually operates: Manitoba, with a portfolio that spans nickel-copper-PGMs at Makwa (under an option and joint venture agreement with Teck Resources Limited, which can earn up to a 70% interest by spending and paying a total of CAD$17.3 million), copper-nickel at Mayville (with an NI 43-101 open-pit resource of 32 million tonnes grading 0.61% CuEq), lithium at Donner (an NI 43-101 resource of 6.8 million tonnes grading 1.39% Li₂O, with Grid holding 75%), and the lithium–cesium story now pulling attention toward Falcon West, about 110 kilometres east of Winnipeg along the Trans-Canada Highway.Hughes didn’t waste time getting to the point. “In our InvestorTalk earlier today, you were talking about cesium,” she said, noting the “huge following” Grid has drawn on short-form video explaining why it matters. Dunbar’s answer came out with the kind of practiced urgency that suggests he has had the same conversation with end-users, financiers, and skeptics—often in the same week. “Cesium is a fascinating metal and an opportunity in the critical metal space,” he said, before narrowing the market to a startling scarcity: “There have only been three producing deposits of cesium ever globally, and there are currently only three juniors with active drill programs… globally.”The scarcity, in Dunbar’s telling, isn’t merely academic. Cesium’s best-known public-facing role is invisible: atomic clocks that underpin global positioning. But he framed it as an enabling material with both mundane and strategic pull—“high-tech and military applications,” plus drilling fluids for deep wells, and “a growing array of uses in optical and solar.” And then the line that matters most in a market built on continuity of supply: “We’re seeing interest from end users because there’s a huge shortage of cesium feedstock in the world right now.”From there, the interview snapped into geology and economics—the two languages junior miners must speak at once. Grid’s recent work at Falcon West has focused on a flat-lying pegmatite system where cesium occurs alongside lithium and rubidium. “The zone we’re drilling starts at about 20 metres down,” Dunbar explained, describing “a 1 to 3 metre zone of the mineralization we’re looking for.” The target mineral is pollucite, the principal host of high-grade cesium. “When we drill and we get pollucite, the grades we’re getting are as high as 27% over a metre,” he said, pausing just long enough for the number to register. “Globally, to find pollucite, there are just a few occurrences—it’s very hard to find.”A December 4, 2025 Grid Metals news release put those kinds of numbers into market-standard intervals, reporting high-grade intercepts including 3.45 metres grading 16.8% Cs₂O (LU25-09) and 4.0 metres grading 10.4% Cs₂O, with a 1.2-metre sub-interval at 27.1% Cs₂O (LU25-08)—results the company described as “amongst the highest Cs₂O drill intercepts reported globally, in recent years.”Hughes, speaking for an audience that lives somewhere between capital markets and chemistry, asked Dunbar to “dumb down rubidium.” He obliged by placing it in the family: rubidium is “a sister metal to cesium,” with overlapping physical properties—“very high conductivity, photovoltaic properties”—but a very different extraction reality. Cesium can occur in pollucite at extraordinary concentrations, he said, while rubidium typically sits dispersed in lepidolite and mica, “and tends to only get to a maximum of 2% to 3% in very high-grade materials.” In other words: interesting, potentially useful, but rarely the main event—unless new applications and new processing routes change the equation.

Cesium is what happens when a “minor metal” stops behaving like a footnote and starts acting like a constraint.On InvestorNews.com, host Tracy Hughes opened her conversation with Robin Dunbar—President, CEO, and Director of Grid Metals Corp. (TSXV: GRDM | OTCQB: MSMGF)—by placing the company where it actually operates: Manitoba, with a portfolio that spans nickel-copper-PGMs at Makwa (under an option and joint venture agreement with Teck Resources Limited, which can earn up to a 70% interest by spending and paying a total of CAD$17.3 million), copper-nickel at Mayville (with an NI 43-101 open-pit resource of 32 million tonnes grading 0.61% CuEq), lithium at Donner (an NI 43-101 resource of 6.8 million tonnes grading 1.39% Li₂O, with Grid holding 75%), and the lithium–cesium story now pulling attention toward Falcon West, about 110 kilometres east of Winnipeg along the Trans-Canada Highway.Hughes didn’t waste time getting to the point. “In our InvestorTalk earlier today, you were talking about cesium,” she said, noting the “huge following” Grid has drawn on short-form video explaining why it matters. Dunbar’s answer came out with the kind of practiced urgency that suggests he has had the same conversation with end-users, financiers, and skeptics—often in the same week. “Cesium is a fascinating metal and an opportunity in the critical metal space,” he said, before narrowing the market to a startling scarcity: “There have only been three producing deposits of cesium ever globally, and there are currently only three juniors with active drill programs… globally.”The scarcity, in Dunbar’s telling, isn’t merely academic. Cesium’s best-known public-facing role is invisible: atomic clocks that underpin global positioning. But he framed it as an enabling material with both mundane and strategic pull—“high-tech and military applications,” plus drilling fluids for deep wells, and “a growing array of uses in optical and solar.” And then the line that matters most in a market built on continuity of supply: “We’re seeing interest from end users because there’s a huge shortage of cesium feedstock in the world right now.”From there, the interview snapped into geology and economics—the two languages junior miners must speak at once. Grid’s recent work at Falcon West has focused on a flat-lying pegmatite system where cesium occurs alongside lithium and rubidium. “The zone we’re drilling starts at about 20 metres down,” Dunbar explained, describing “a 1 to 3 metre zone of the mineralization we’re looking for.” The target mineral is pollucite, the principal host of high-grade cesium. “When we drill and we get pollucite, the grades we’re getting are as high as 27% over a metre,” he said, pausing just long enough for the number to register. “Globally, to find pollucite, there are just a few occurrences—it’s very hard to find.”A December 4, 2025 Grid Metals news release put those kinds of numbers into market-standard intervals, reporting high-grade intercepts including 3.45 metres grading 16.8% Cs₂O (LU25-09) and 4.0 metres grading 10.4% Cs₂O, with a 1.2-metre sub-interval at 27.1% Cs₂O (LU25-08)—results the company described as “amongst the highest Cs₂O drill intercepts reported globally, in recent years.”Hughes, speaking for an audience that lives somewhere between capital markets and chemistry, asked Dunbar to “dumb down rubidium.” He obliged by placing it in the family: rubidium is “a sister metal to cesium,” with overlapping physical properties—“very high conductivity, photovoltaic properties”—but a very different extraction reality. Cesium can occur in pollucite at extraordinary concentrations, he said, while rubidium typically sits dispersed in lepidolite and mica, “and tends to only get to a maximum of 2% to 3% in very high-grade materials.” In other words: interesting, potentially useful, but rarely the main event—unless new applications and new processing routes change the equation.

Power, in the rare earth business, isn’t found in the grade in the ground—it’s found in what you can turn that rock into, reliably, at scale, in a jurisdiction that wants the mine built.That framing is why Jack Lifton’s conversation with Mark Tory—President, CEO, and Director of Defense Metals Corp. (TSXV: DEFN | OTCQB: DFMTF)—lands with unusual clarity. Tory is not a newly minted executive discovering the critical minerals script in real time. He has “over 30 years in resources,” he told Lifton, “cutting my teeth at some big companies like Homestake and Anglo American before going into the junior sector.” He spent roughly a decade at Northern Minerals in Australia’s Kimberley region, focused on heavy rare earths, and he has done the kind of work that separates rare earth rhetoric from rare earth reality: “I’m probably one of the few people, Jack, who can say they’ve built and operated a rare earth processing facility.”Defense Metals’ story is anchored at its 100% owned Wicheeda Rare Earth Element mineral deposit in British Columbia—about 80 kilometres northeast of Prince George—where the company is advancing a development plan that increasingly reads like a North American counterpoint to the usual dependency narrative. The project is “readily accessible by a paved highway and an all-weather gravel road,” and it sits near power and transport infrastructure that includes hydroelectric transmission lines, rail, and port facilities at Prince Rupert. Tory, speaking from the operator’s side of the equation, emphasized the practicalities: Prince George is “an existing mining town,” with “an existing workforce,” plus “roads, rail, and access to hydroelectric power.” The rail line’s reach to Prince Rupert—“about 500 kilometres away”—matters not as a brochure detail, but as a cost and logistics lever in a business that can be undone by distance, permitting drag, and processing complexity.Lifton, who has followed rare earth projects long enough to see hopeful flow sheets dissolve into reality, pressed Tory on why he took the helm. Tory’s answer was telling, and it wasn’t a romantic one. “I obviously did my due diligence on the project,” he said, before delivering the point that has become the quiet dividing line between paper deposits and bankable projects: “When you look at rare earth projects, you don’t necessarily focus only on the grade in the ground. You need to look at what it concentrates up to through a relatively simple beneficiation process.” What attracted him to Wicheeda, he said, is that the ore “goes from about 2.4% in the ground to a 50% concentrate grade,” a level he described as “in line with all the major producers around the world—Lynas, MP Materials, as well as the Chinese producers.” The implication is direct: a project that can upgrade material efficiently is a project that can credibly talk about economics—and, eventually, financing.That upgrade path also shapes the way Defense Metals talks about product strategy. In the company’s Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS), completed in 2025 (with news releases dated February 18 and April 7, 2025), Defense Metals outlined a high-purity product concept that reflects real downstream conversations rather than generic “mixed carbonate” ambiguity. “It’s a very high-purity product,” Tory said, “with cerium and lanthanum completely removed.” What remains, by his account, is a chemistry that markets tend to reward: “That leaves an 87% NdPr and about 12% heavies.” When Lifton clarified the figures, Tory confirmed: “Yes—in the carbonate.” He added a detail designed to resonate with pricing credibility: “When Argus reviewed the final product, it valued it significantly higher than any other project globally, including the heavies.”

In Washington, “peace” is being marketed like a term sheet. In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, it is still a battlefield. In the critical minerals economy, ambiguity is always expensive.In a new InvestorNews.com interview for the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), Tracy Hughes speaks with Melissa “Mel” Sanderson, CMI’s co-chair, about a Trump-brokered Rwanda–DRC peace deal signed in Washington on December 4, 2025. Sanderson’s verdict is blunt: “This is a pipe dream.”Her first objection is procedural. The deal’s economic promises hinge on a ceasefire and the withdrawal of M23—yet M23 wasn’t in the talks. That omission, she argues, “is an implicit acknowledgement” of what U.N. experts have alleged: Rwanda exercises command and control over the rebel movement. Then came the map. This week, Reuters and the Associated Press reported that M23 fighters entered and then consolidated control over Uvira, a strategic town in South Kivu, even as diplomacy pressed forward. Sanderson notes why Uvira matters: it sits on routes that connect Congo to Tanzania—“an alternative route for shipping out illegally obtained mineral wealth,” as she put it—beyond the traditional flows through Rwanda.The second objection is capacity. President Trump, Sanderson says, invoked “huge U.S. players” eager to build mines. But big operators avoid active war zones; she points to Freeport-McMoRan’s 2016 exit from its Tenke Fungurume position as a reminder of how quickly exposure can be cut when risk and politics swell. Would-be entrants today are more likely to be juniors—too small to fund Congo-scale projects without insurance, lenders, and security that is not on offer.Her third objection is physical: infrastructure. Eastern Congo’s transport and power systems, battered across decades of conflict, still complicate routine logistics—never mind industrial mining.What should Washington do instead? Sanderson offers a fork. If the goal is peace, “you need… targeted sanctions” and leverage on Kigali, not investment cheerleading—an argument echoed this week as U.S. officials accused Rwanda of violating the deal. If the goal is supply chains, she says, assemble financing and risk coverage—and stop confusing “creating peace” with “making a deal.”Disclaimer: Video interviews and other video content published by InvestorNews are produced as part of paid media services. The issuer or company featured in this video has compensated InvestorNews for the creation and publication of such content. The views expressed in these interviews are those of the interviewees or guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of InvestorNews, its writers, or its affiliates. For full details, please refer to our complete disclaimer at www.investornews.com/disclaimer

A new Ontario law is turning digital cleaning records from a niche software feature into a compliance requirement, and Visionstate Corp. (TSXV: VIS) is positioning its technology at the centre of that shift.Visionstate is a growth-oriented company that invests in the research and development of technology in the realm of the Internet of Things, big data and analytics, and sustainability. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Visionstate IoT Inc., it helps businesses improve operational efficiencies, reduce costs and elevate customer satisfaction with devices that track and monitor guest activities and requests. Its WANDA™ smart device has been deployed in hospitals, airports, shopping centres and other public facilities across and beyond North America, forming the foundation of a Software-as-a-Service model built around monitoring how facilities are cleaned and maintained.In an interview with InvestorNews.com host Tracy Hughes, CEO and Director John Putters linked that existing product set directly to Ontario’s Bill 190, which mandates digital cleaning records in certain public washrooms. “Bill 190 is essentially legislating digital cleaning records for health and safety,” he said. “So Bill 190 is really to protect people, to make sure that there’s access to the cleaning records and what’s been done and when and by whom and all the rest of it, which is essentially what Wanda did in the first place.” Putters noted that “our product and that legislation meet in the middle at a very nice point,” and said the company has “been capitalizing on it.”Public-health concerns provide the backdrop. “Obviously, we live in a world now where disease and infections can become pandemics,” Putters said, adding that “in Canada we’ve even lost our status as measles-free.” While he was careful not to overstate the impact of any single technology—“I’m not going to say Wanda is going to address that”—he connected clean, well-kept facilities with efforts to reduce the spread of disease and framed digital records as a way to provide verifiable evidence of what has been done.The company is using Bill 190’s January 1st effective date to drive new customer adoption. Putters acknowledged that the law represents a burden for operators: “Nobody likes legislation, right? Nobody likes to be legislated. You know, I’m doing things and the government comes along and says there’s new legislation that you’ve got to comply with, and if you don’t comply with it, it’s going to be a $10,000 fine.” Visionstate’s response has been to remove an immediate cost barrier. “We decided we’ll onboard all these companies up until December 31st and not bill them until January 1st, which is when the legislation comes into effect,” he explained. “This has been extremely effective as a strategy. So it does forego some revenue in the short term, but as a Software-as-a-Service model, these contracts can go on for years and years and years, and we have an 80% margin on our software once it’s out there.”That approach, Putters said, is already visible in the company’s metrics. “Our acquisition rate has gone up year over year probably 200 to 300% as a result of that strategy, and all of those companies will be billed starting January 1st,” he told Hughes. He described the emphasis on scale and data as deliberate: “Our whole strategy is to get as much of the market as possible as quickly as possible to increase the value, and frankly to increase the ability to collect data—because it’s all about the data at the end of the day, which is why the five largest companies in the world are all essentially data companies, whether that’s Meta or X or whatever.”

Spartan Metals Corp. (TSXV: W | OTCQB: SPRMF) is advancing its flagship Eagle Project in eastern Nevada, a past-producing tungsten district being repositioned as a multi-metal critical minerals asset centered on tungsten, rubidium, silver and copper. The company’s strategy is to build a portfolio of strategic defense minerals in top-tier Western U.S. jurisdictions, with a focus on tungsten, rubidium, antimony, bismuth and arsenic.In an interview with InvestorNews.com host Tracy Hughes, President, CEO, and Director Brett Marsh described Eagle as a largely untested modern exploration target built on a historic production base. The project hosts the past-producing Tungstonia and Rees/Antelope tungsten mines, which together recorded historic production of 8,379 units at grades between 0.6% and 0.9% WO₃ between 1915 and 1956. The 20-square-kilometer land package lies about 120 kilometers northeast of Ely, Nevada, in the Kern Mountains and covers 4,936 acres across 244 unpatented Federal lode mining claims.Spartan’s current program at Eagle is built around three deposit types identified on the property—porphyry, skarn and carbonate replacement—hosting tungsten (W), silver (Ag) and rubidium (Rb), with associated copper, antimony, gold, lead, zinc, bismuth and arsenic. Company materials describe Eagle as an opportunity to delineate one of the largest and highest-grade tungsten and rubidium districts in the United States, including potential recovery of tungsten, rubidium and silver from legacy mill tailings at Tungstonia. Marsh noted that Spartan has completed 34 holes into the tailings for assay and two additional holes for metallurgical work to test whether they can provide an early source of cash flow.Rubidium, one of the less familiar critical minerals in Spartan’s portfolio, was a particular focus. Marsh highlighted its use in quantum computing, next-generation telecommunications, and atomic clocks that underpin advanced weapon systems and precision timing. As he put it, rubidium “has its fingers in a lot of different aspects of the industry, from high-tech into military applications.”A November 3, 2025, news release outlined the polymetallic potential at Eagle. Surface work and a review of historic rock-chip sampling have identified high-grade silver and base-metal replacement mineralization extending roughly 2.5 kilometers along the contact between the Tungstonia granite intrusion and carbonate host rocks south and southwest of the Tungstonia vein system. The mineralization is associated with previously unrecognized quartz veins with similar strike and spacing to those around the past-producing Tungstonia Mine, and rock-chip results include elevated silver, lead, copper and zinc typical of carbonate replacement deposits.Spartan sees similar potential on the Rees claim block, which also hosts two past-producing mines: Rees, another tungsten producer, and Antelope, a polymetallic silver-copper-antimony-arsenic deposit. At Antelope, historic production reports cited copper head grades of up to about 4% with significant silver, while recent fieldwork at Eagle has identified additional carbonate replacement-style targets with copper in the 1.5–2% range and silver up to about 900 grams per tonne.Spartan has broadened its investor base by securing a U.S. listing, with its common shares now trading on the OTCQB Venture Market under the symbol SPRMF as of November 17, 2025, complementing its TSX Venture Exchange listing under the symbol W.

Critical minerals are no longer a niche subset of the periodic table; they are the wiring diagram of geopolitical power, and Canada is sitting on a toolkit it still hasn’t decided how to use.As Co-Chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), Jack Lifton has spent decades mapping that wiring diagram, from obscure byproduct metals to the politics that decide where refineries get built. CMI, which I help lead, has created as a “brain trust” for this emerging economy: a global hub that connects companies, capital markets and policymakers, backed by masterclasses, a weekly Critical Minerals Report, and an annual summit that now draws ministers, institutional investors and C-suite executives to Toronto.When I asked Lifton what he plans to discuss at PDAC 2026 in Toronto, he did not start with lithium or copper, but with the quiet metals hidden in their shadow. “They’ve asked me to give an introductory talk and then chair a panel on the sourcing of critical minerals for the electronics industry in Canada,” he said. But his real focus is on the companion metals that fall out of existing operations: “The metals for electronics, the critical metals, come as companion metals in copper mining, aluminum mining, zinc mining, silver mining. So what they are is, for example, gallium, germanium, tellurium, selenium, cadmium, metals like that, and of course silicon.”This is not a theoretical list. Lifton’s point is that the raw material base for an advanced electronics industry already exists inside Canada’s established mining complex. “All of these metals or metalloids can be produced in Canada as byproducts of major mining,” he told me. He ticks through the map: Rio Tinto Group (LSE: RIO) (NYSE: RIO) in Quebec processing bauxite into aluminum and, as a result, being able to produce gallium and scandium; Teck Resources Limited (TSX: TECK.A / TECK.B) (NYSE: TECK) mining zinc in Western Canada, with germanium as a companion; high-quality silicon deposits in Manitoba now attracting junior developers; tellurium and selenium emerging as byproducts of copper. “You have the entire suite of critical electronic minerals, which are byproducts,” he said. “All could be produced in Canada, and as far as the measures, they will be produced in Canada.”If that sounds like a blueprint for an industrial policy, that is exactly how Lifton frames it. In his view, the missing step is not geology but intent. “Canada should take a hard look at enticing the electronics industry—manufacturing of chips and basic electronic devices like chips—because everything is there,” he argued. The PDAC panel he will chair is expected to include representatives from Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Teck alongside him. “This is interesting to me because normally I don’t talk to the majors,” he admitted. “These critical minerals for electronics are things that the majors can produce but really don’t know a lot about.”That gap—between what can be produced and what is strategically understood—is precisely where CMI has tried to position itself. Recent membership additions such as Quantum Critical Metals Corp. (TSX.V: LEAP | OTCQB: ATOXF | FSE: 86A1) show how the ecosystem is evolving around metals that, until recently, would barely have merited a line item in an annual report. Quantum, a junior explorer with projects focused on gallium, rubidium, cesium, antimony and germanium in Québec and British Columbia, joined CMI this fall, citing the Institute’s role in “support[ing] the clean energy transition, address[ing] supply chain vulnerabilities and strengthen[ing] national security.”

The United States is advancing one of its most significant government-backed critical minerals initiatives in years, and Pini Althaus, Managing Partner of Cove Capital LLC, has emerged as a central figure in its execution. In a discussion with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Althaus described recent meetings in Washington, D.C., where U.S. President Donald J. Trump and senior cabinet officials reviewed the tungsten supply-chain agreement between the United States and Kazakhstan. “It’s definitely a new dawn in Washington,” Althaus said. “The approach that this administration is taking to securing critical mineral supply chains is unprecedented,” noting direct involvement from the President, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Bergman. “We’re seeing practical outcomes,” he said, as agencies adopt what he called “a very commercial approach” to long-term supply-chain security.Cove Capital, founded in 2015 and focused since 2018 on critical minerals, has been developing projects intended to supply U.S. and allied industrial, technological, and defense needs. While the sector’s attention has largely focused on rare earth elements, lithium, copper, and cobalt, Althaus emphasized that tungsten remains indispensable for national-security applications. “Tungsten—the uses are numerous, but especially for military applications, like munitions and armor-piercing ammunition,” he said. Because of its high melting point and density, tungsten is also used in space, nuclear systems, and industrial manufacturing. China controls more than 80 percent of global tungsten supply, and, as Althaus noted, “earlier this year also enacted a ban on tungsten exports to the United States… right around the time that President Trump took the oath of office.” This left the U.S. without a long-term supply source.The Kazakhstan project at the center of the new bilateral agreement contains what Althaus described as “in excess of 10% of global tungsten reserves.” The Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty deposits, held through Severniy Katpar LLP, have been extensively studied, with a 2023 feasibility study reporting 1.4 million tonnes of JORC-compliant tungsten trioxide (WO₃). According to the data provided, the deposits represent roughly 70% of Kazakhstan’s known tungsten resources. Planned output of 12,000 tonnes per year equates to about 15% of current global production. “At even a 12,000-ton-per-annum rate,” Althaus said, “it’s over a 50-year supply for the United States for tungsten.”The agreement was formalized through an MOU signed by President Trump and Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Althaus described it as “a government-to-government deal” in which the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) issued Letters of Interest. EXIM’s letter supports up to USD $900 million in financing. Total project development costs are estimated at USD $1.1 billion. According to the structure described, Cove Kaz Capital Group LLC will hold 70% of Severniy Katpar LLP, and Kazakhstan’s national mining company, JSC Tau-Ken Samruk, will hold 30%. Cove Kaz will market 100% of production under an LOI with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.Althaus confirmed that the project will use a public-private model. “I anticipate that what we’ll see out of the U.S. government is the debt side. We’ll be bringing the equity side,” he said. Based on the feasibility study and current tungsten prices, he cited “almost $80 billion of minerals in this one project.” He stated that development will be led by Dominic Heaton, former CEO of Masan Resources, whose team developed the Nui Phao tungsten project in Vietnam. Cove plans to complete an updated Definitive Feasibility Study, with mine and plant construction targeted to begin within 24 months.

The U.S. clean-energy and defense supply chain may be on the cusp of a major shift — and not on American soil. In a recent interview with InvestorNews host Jack Lifton, Pini Althaus, managing partner of Cove Capital LLC, detailed his firm’s expanding footprint in Central Asia as it seeks to supply critical minerals to the United States and its allies.Althaus described how, following his tenure at USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR, he turned his focus outward: “The United States itself doesn’t have enough developed projects for critical minerals here. … Whilst we endeavour to have a domestic supply chain … we’re going to have to look overseas.” According to him, the firm “saw Central Asia … as the lowest-hanging fruit.” He said that since early 2023, the company has been active in Kazakhstan, and that they are “the first, and I believe still only, U.S. company to have critical minerals licenses there.”The centerpiece of the strategy is the tungsten deal. Althaus told Lifton that on November 6 the company “was awarded … the largest tungsten project in the world, which contains in excess of 10 % of global tungsten reserves.” The venture is structured as a 70/30 joint-venture between a Cove Capital portfolio company and Kazakhstan’s national mining company, JSC Tau-Ken Samruk, with development costs estimated at roughly USD $1.1 billion. U.S. government backing includes a letter of interest for USD $900 million from the Export-Import Bank of the United States. According to Reuters reporting, construction is expected within two years, with production beginning in about 3½ years, and refining operations also in Kazakhstan.Althaus emphasized that the agreement is not only about mining ore: “We will be taking it further downstream, all the way down to metals, tools, etc. And Kazakhstan has the ability to do this.” He added that their technical team is led by Dominic Heaton, the former CEO of Masan Resources, which developed the Nui Phao tungsten mine and refinery in Vietnam.Lifton pointed out the strategic implications — noting that China currently controls more than 80 % of global tungsten reserves and enacted export controls to the U.S. earlier this year. Althaus agreed, framing the project in broader supply-chain terms: “Slowly but surely, chipping away at the monopoly. … The U.S. government is not going to develop the projects itself, but it is supporting them in a structured, commercial way.” He suggested that Washington is now taking a “very commercial approach” to the issue of critical-minerals sourcing, moving beyond the memorandum-of-understanding era.Beyond tungsten the firm is exploring other critical minerals in Central Asia. “In Kazakhstan we have lithium, beryllium, niobium, tin. And we are looking at opportunities in the other C5 countries. I’ve made several trips to Tashkent this year. I’ve met President Mirziyoyev four times already in 2025.” He added that Uzbekistan has also “enacted business reforms and reforms to its mining code, making it easier for companies like us to develop projects.”Althaus reflected on how the regulatory and political environment in Washington has evolved. “When I first went to Washington … there were only a handful of members of Congress who knew what a critical mineral was. … I think now this is one of the only bipartisan issues in Washington. And I don’t see the momentum stopping.”The interview underscores how a private-sector investment firm is stepping into a space traditionally dominated by state actors — deploying capital, negotiating with foreign governments, lining up downstream commitments, and aligning with U.S. policy objectives. The Kazakhstan tungsten agreement is reported to target production of approximately 12,000 metric tonnes per annum, representing about 15 % of current global output. The resource base is judged sufficient to support a 50-plus-year mine life.

“Shipping means revenue, means cash for the shareholders.” That was how Peter Clausi, Director and Vice President of Capital Markets at Silver Bullet Mines Corp. (TSXV: SBMI | OTCQB: SBMCF), described the company’s latest operational milestone. In a discussion with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Clausi confirmed that following a first shipment of approximately 4,000 pounds of gold concentrate from the KT Gold Mine and about 2,000 pounds from the SC Mine, Silver Bullet has prepared about 2,500 pounds of concentrate from the KT Gold Mine for its second shipment.The company’s news release, issued November 17, 2025, noted that payment for initial shipments will be made 60 days from receipt at the refinery, and that future shipments are targeted every two weeks, each ranging between roughly 2,500 and 4,000 pounds of concentrate. In the interview, Clausi reiterated the cadence: “Every two weeks. Every two weeks. Every two weeks.”Clausi emphasized the importance of assay results in determining the value of the shipments. “We’re not talking dollar amounts yet,” he stated. “The buyer will run its own assays. We will share … our assay results, and then we will figure out … what that shipment is worth and we’ll be paid.” He added that the independent lab results for the SC Mine material had exceeded detection limits across the board—“every single sample ran over the detection limits … It’s an excellent problem to have.”Regarding processing, Clausi explained the technical process in simple terms: “If there’s, let’s say, X amount of gold in the host material … you go through the process … you’re stripping away anything that isn’t gold, so what you have left … is gold in the concentrate.” He also clarified that Silver Bullet is concentrating its efforts on the KT Mine because “we believe that there’s a lot more value per ton in the KT material—gold—than there is in the SC material—silver.” He confirmed that material from the KT Mine is already in the mill and on the ground undergoing processing into gold concentrate in preparation for the next shipment. He also pointed ahead to the next quarter: “Our announcement of what the KT material from the first and second shipments assays at … how that translates into ‘X’ dollars of revenue. That’ll be a very exciting news release.… we’re also doing work up in Idaho, and there should be additional news about the great progress we’re making up there.”

From the moment you touch down in the desert‐sculpted Erongo region of Namibia, you sense the tectonic shift underway — and ReeXploration Inc. (TSXV: REE) is positioning itself at the heart of it. This Canadian exploration company is focused on meeting the surging global demand for secure, responsible supplies of critical minerals essential to the clean-energy transition, advanced technologies and national defence. Its flagship Eureka Project in central Namibia hosts rare earth element (REE) mineralisation in monazite, rich in neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) magnet metals, with bench-scale testing confirming it can produce a clean, Western-standard concentrate. Supported by a Namibia-based technical team and guided by global critical minerals experts, ReeXploration is advancing discovery-led growth for REEs and other critical minerals — and is building a credible, ESG-aligned platform positioned to benefit from the global race to diversify and secure responsible supply chains."Namibia is arguably one of the most stable and best jurisdictions in Africa, and they have a long, proud history of mining," Drysdale begins when asked why the company is there. He continues: "They’ve got three of the world’s largest uranium deposits … Namibia is head and shoulders above a lot of other jurisdictions in Africa." He adds matter-of-factly that: “Up until recently, it has been relatively under-explored for critical minerals … we came across one called the Eureka Project. So that’s why Namibia — it’s by far one of the best jurisdictions to be based in.”Proximity and infrastructure matter as much as the geology. “So the Walvis Bay Port, which is about 180 kilometres away from our project on a main road,” Drysdale explains, “is arguably the best port on the west coast of Africa. … With it being positioned on the west coast of Africa, it has a direct link to North America and Europe … without having to go around Africa or around the Horn or through the Suez Canal.” He is clearly sizing up geopolitical supply chains as much as rocks and ore.Yet what distinguishes this company perhaps most clearly is what Drysdale calls a “metallurgy-first” development approach. "From a crustal abundance point of view, rare earths are abundantly available but extracting them and getting to a Western-amenable product … was the problem," he says. “So, we decided to flip exploration on its head … we would look at rare earth projects and be able to solve the metallurgy and extract a product first at scale, before looking for scalability of the deposit.” He points out key criteria: “it has to have a low thorium content, so it doesn’t have high radioactivity; it allows for simple shipping; it has products that are easily winnable through conventional processing.” Only after ticking those boxes did they proceed to explore scalability.That strategy now seems to be bearing fruit. Drysdale reviews the recent developments at Eureka: “We’ve got geochemistry up to 8.75 % TREO in surface samples, with confirmed visible monazite in carbonatite on surface. And this really is an undrilled monster that hasn’t been previously tested in any of our drilling.” He emphasises two things: “We’ve identified a new area — from a scale and TREO perspective — that is bigger and better than what we’ve previously seen, with visible monazite on surface.” Adding: “Our historical work is now giving us shape to a deep-seated system that shows scalability and size potential.”He breaks down the key target: “We are mainly looking for neodymium and praseodymium — a monazite-hosted NdPr project. … NdPr are extremely critical in high-frequency magnets, drivetrains, and defence. … These are the minerals currently controlled by China … For us … our simple monazite with easy metallurgy … and that product being a high-value NdPr product … makes us very confident we’re in the right space and looking for the right mineral.”

In a rare alignment between a junior exploration company and a national research institution, Canuc Resources Corporation (TSXV: CDA | OTCQB: CNUCF) has found its flagship East Sudbury Project (Northeastern Ontario, Canada) under the direct scrutiny of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). The federal agency has commissioned a seismic survey on Canuc’s McLaren Lake Fault Zone (MLFZ)—a move that company President and CEO Christopher Berlet describes as both validating and transformative.“For me, it started in 2024 when I was on site,” Berlet recalled in his conversation with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes. “There were a number of geoscientists there from all over the world—IOCG specialists, iron oxide copper gold deposit-type specialists from Australia, the Netherlands, South Korea. I recall being astounded at the number of places where they had come from.” The experts, Berlet explained, were evaluating where NRCan could “spend money for maximum impact for very large deposit-type discoveries.” Their final assessment singled out Canuc’s McLaren Lake Fault Zone as the most deserving of deeper research.The seismic survey—scheduled for late March or early April 2026—will be executed by Optiseis Solutions Ltd. of Calgary, one of Canada’s leaders in subsurface imaging. Its objective is to illuminate fluid pathways and fault structures associated with Metasomatic Iron Alkali Calcic (MIAC) and Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) systems, both of which are known to host valuable copper, gold, and critical mineral concentrations. “We were delighted by the commitment from Natural Resources Canada to proceed, spend money on the project, and conduct this seismic survey,” Berlet said. “The result of their work—and they reviewed many properties across the country—was that this McLaren Lake Fault Zone on Canuc’s ground was the property that most deserved further work and research.”Berlet emphasized that Canuc will be closely involved in the data interpretation process. “There will be several specialists involved in interpretation, and it will provide very specific actionable intelligence for follow-up drilling,” he said, noting that results could be available within one month of survey completion.The McLaren Lake development is part of Canuc’s East Sudbury Project (ESP)—a 19,710-hectare land package located roughly 20 kilometers northeast of the prolific Sudbury Mining Camp. The company believes the ESP hosts multiple centers of mineralization consistent with IOCG and affiliated critical and precious metal systems. Berlet sees these targets as “company-makers,” comparing their potential to the globally renowned Candelaria and Olympic Dam deposits.“We have a very compelling case for a silver-dominant IOCG in Mexico on our San Javier claims,” he said, referring to Canuc’s parallel project in Sonora State, Mexico. “We’ve found up to bonanza grades of silver. We’ve found massive magnetite anomalies—magnetic anomalies. And we have one in particular that looks like on either side, veins daylight with bonanza grades of silver. There’s silver in soils above this magnetic anomaly. It’s a kilometer long, about 800 meters wide, and could support a very substantial silver metal inventory in magnetite, which is the IOCG model.”Supporting exploration with sustainable cash flow is central to Berlet’s operating philosophy. “In the instance of Canuc, we have these long-life natural gas wells in Texas,” he said. “We’ve added a 4% royalty on the tailings that we’re processing on the site of the Scadding tailings rehabilitation project in East Sudbury. And now we’re drilling for a high-grade gold lens… that can support a more substantive—still small scale for a mining company—but robust capital opportunity.”