From Mozambique to Washington : Altona Rare Earths in U.S. Talks to bolster Critical Minerals Independence
“…There are very, very, very few companies in the world which have a JORC resource for gallium. We are engaging with the US Government…”
There might be a federal government shutdown in the US and one that may become American history’s longest, but that’s unlikely to impact the negotiations that Altona Rare Earths is having with US Government department – the US Trade and Development Agency.
It’s engaged with the company about the possibility of providing funding support for the Monte Muambe rare earths pre-feasibility study and possibly providing the consultants to do the graft for the PFS. It will help both parties as the US is looking to strengthen the US domestic rare earths supply chain and reduce reliance on China.
Altona benefits at multiple levels. The fact its multi-opportunity Monte Muambe is on the US radar gives kudos to the project that has potential for a fluorspar mine development. It also engenders coveting and flushes out other potential partners who want to become involved in an asset that has critical raw materials of strategic importance.
With the Pentagon committing $1 billion to set up a critical materials stockpile and JP Morgan announcing it is committing $1.5 trillion towards investment in critical raw materials supply chains for the US the potential partners are multiplying on a weekly basis.
This type of interest also helps the company’s education mission about fluorspar, the industrial mineral which is the constituent on one of the best commodity markets that very few people have heard of.
Altona chief executive Cedric Simonet describes fluorspar as ‘a very, very nice market.’ “It has the stability and the strength of a market which has so many applications everywhere in the world,” says Simonet. “If you produce fluorspar it’s very easy to sell it. When we started to publish our indices about our fluorspar project, we were contacted by many fluorspar traders with a lot of interest.”
So there’s the US government, the traders, there’s a new audience at the upcoming fluorspar conference in Milan and there’s also hugely supportive shareholders with a fundraise in August to support operations followed by a debt-clearing raise in October which gifted Simonet one of his biggest wishes – that of achieving a clean balance sheet and a crisper capital structure.
As Cedric explains to Sarah Lowther in this video interview it’s not just the fluorspar opportunity, but the gallium too which is on course for its own mineral resource estimate. “There are very, very, very few companies in the world which have a JORC resource for gallium. This is going to be one of the first, so it will be a very important event.”
Altona Rare Earths featured in our 20 Mining Companies to follow for 2025 feature
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The author was remunerated but does not hold shares in the company
