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The Joint Fact Sheet is a project-catalogue instrument — distinct from the co-released 19 March 2026 Action Plan (which addressed the price-floor plurilateral policy architecture) — naming five concrete upstream projects for prioritised Japan-US bilateral public-finance support. It was published the morning after Prime Minister Takaichi and President Trump met at the White House on 19 March 2026 and follows the Japan-hosted Critical Minerals Investment Ministerial of 14 March 2026 (Tokyo).
Five named projects:
1. Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) — Goongarrie Hub, Western Australia (nickel) - Lead developer: Ardea Resources (ASX: ARL); joint-venture participants include Sumitomo Metal Mining and Mitsubishi Corporation - METI co-funded 50% of the AUD 98.5 million Definitive Feasibility Study - Export Finance Australia (EFA) and the US Export-Import Bank issued non-binding indications of support of up to AUD 1 billion for project financing - JOGMEC equity participation alongside Japanese commercial off-takers
2. Kabanga Nickel Project — Kagera Region, Tanzania (nickel, cobalt) - High-grade, low-impurity sulphide nickel project - JOGMEC equity and offtake involvement to underpin DFC/bilateral co-financing - Targets battery-grade nickel sulphate for EV supply chains
3. Atlas Lithium Neves Project — Minas Gerais, Brazil (lithium/spodumene) - Developer: Atlas Lithium Corporation (NASDAQ: ATLX) - Will produce spodumene concentrate for downstream lithium hydroxide / battery-grade lithium carbonate conversion - Japan financing vehicles (JOGMEC, JBIC, NEXI) under consideration alongside US DFC facilities
4. Hanwa/JOGMEC UAE Battery Anode Facility — United Arab Emirates (battery-anode graphite) - Joint-venture between Hanwa Co. (TYO: 8078) and JOGMEC for anode-material processing in the UAE - Designed to produce synthetic or natural graphite-based anode materials outside China's graphite-processing perimeter (directly responsive to China's October 2023 graphite export controls)
5. Lofdal Rare Earth Project — Kunene Region, Namibia (heavy rare earth elements, HREE) - Developer: Namibia Critical Metals Inc.; JOGMEC has conducted exploration joint-venture since 2020 and recently completed a Pre-Feasibility Study - Targets heavy REE (dysprosium, terbium) that currently depend on Chinese processing for >85% of global supply - US DOE and JOGMEC to co-facilitate financing for the feasibility-to-construction transition
The Fact Sheet institutionalises a Japan-US public-capital co-deployment framework across the project stack:
This architecture directly mirrors the EU's STEP (Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform) and the EU-CRMA Strategic Projects mechanism — creating a parallel G7-trilateral public-finance rail for upstream critical minerals outside the EU framework.
The Fact Sheet is the operational expression of the post-China-export-restriction (antimony, tungsten, graphite, gallium/germanium, dysprosium) Western supply-chain rebalancing. By naming specific projects and attaching binding feasibility-study co-funding commitments (KNP DFS) and non-binding financing indications (US Ex-Im Bank, EFA), it moves the Japan-US partnership from policy aspiration to project-pipeline management — a structural upgrade from the 2025-10-27 Framework's general principles.
The geographic spread (AU, TZ, BR, UAE, NA) maps onto the Western critical-minerals supply-chain diversification playbook: friendly-jurisdiction upstream assets, mid-stream processing outside China, and battery-material conversion in allied economies (UAE anode facility).