Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The US Department of War awarded 5N Plus Inc. (Montreal-headquartered, TSX: VNP) an USD 18.1 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III grant to expand germanium recovery and refining capacity at its St. George, Utah facility. The award, announced 30 January 2026 under the "Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production" executive order, funds a roughly sevenfold expansion of zone-refining capacity to more than 20 metric tons of high-purity germanium per year over 48 months, sourced from industrial residues and mining by-products. The germanium feeds optical and solar-cell germanium crystal supply chains used in defense applications.

On 15 January 2026, Canada Growth Fund Inc. (CGF), a CAD 15bn federal Crown investment vehicle, announced it will lead an up to US$85 million structured financing for Mangrove Water Technologies Ltd. (Mangrove Lithium), a British Columbia-based lithium refiner. CGF's own commitment is up to US$65 million, alongside continued participation from existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures and BMW i Ventures; the CGF tranche closed concurrently with a separate CAD 9 million loan from National Bank of Canada backed by the federal Clean Technology Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit. Proceeds commission Mangrove's 1,000-tonne-per-annum Single Stack Plant in Delta, BC and advance development of a planned 20,000-tonne-per-year full-scale plant, with the government citing the deal as reducing reliance on overseas lithium processing and building an onshore mining-to-refining supply chain.

On 19 December 2025 Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) announced EUR 170 million in direct federal grants to seven transformation projects in former coal regions under the STARK programme (Stärkung der Transformationsdynamik und Aufbruch in den Revieren und an den Kohlekraftwerksstandorten), targeting an expected EUR 600 million in total triggered investment and roughly 600 direct jobs plus up to 3,000 indirect supply-chain jobs. The largest disclosed awards anchor the domestic battery-materials value chain: EUR 63.4 million to Aachen startup Cylib for Europe's first industrial-scale LFP battery-recycling line at Chempark Dormagen (60,000 t/year capacity), EUR 36 million to AMG-Lithium GmbH for a battery-grade lithium-salt production expansion (~20,000 t/year) at Chemiepark Bitterfeld-Wolfen, and EUR 46.1 million to Altech Batteries GmbH for a sodium-based (CERENERGY) stationary storage factory at the Lusatian industrial park Schwarze Pumpe. A fourth confirmed recipient, ORE Energy, received EUR 16.2 million for an iron-air storage project ("IronAir4Ruhr") in Gelsenkirchen; the remaining three of the seven funded projects are not yet individually named in public BMWE materials.

The US Department of Commerce awarded Crucible Metals, LLC — a subsidiary of South Korea's Korea Zinc — USD 210 million in direct CHIPS Incentives Program funding to build a smelter and critical-minerals processing facility in Clarksville, Tennessee. The facility, styled "Project Crucible," is an advanced replica of Korea Zinc's Onsan complex and is expected to cost roughly USD 6.6 billion in capital expenditure (USD 7.4 billion in total project financing), targeting first production in 2029. At full scale it is designed to produce 13 critical and strategic minerals — including gallium, germanium, antimony, indium, bismuth, tellurium, cadmium and palladium alongside roughly 300,000 tons/year of zinc, 200,000 tons/year of lead and 35,000+ tons/year of copper. As a condition of the award, Korea Zinc committed to give the US government and US customers priority access to its existing Korean-refined output of 10 critical minerals beginning in 2026, and the project separately secured conditional Department of War (Office of Strategic Capital) loan support and FAST-41 covered-project permitting status.

The Government of Ontario launched the Critical Minerals Processing Fund (CMPF), a CAD 500 million (~USD 364 million) provincial financial-support program to accelerate processing and refining capacity for critical minerals mined in the province, administered through Invest Ontario. The fund targets nickel, graphite, copper, cobalt and lithium, with a geographic emphasis on the Ring of Fire region northeast of Thunder Bay, and is intended to keep Ontario-mined minerals processed domestically rather than exported raw. It complements a separate CAD 3.1 billion package of loans, guarantees, grants and scholarships supporting Indigenous participation in the province's critical-minerals supply chain, and was first flagged in Ontario's 2025 Budget.

The US Department of Energy's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) issued a Notice of Funding Opportunity for up to $134 million to support projects that demonstrate commercial-scale recovery and refining of rare earth elements — praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium — from unconventional feedstocks such as mine tailings, e-waste and other waste streams, under the department's Rare Earth Demonstration Facility program. Applicants must partner with an academic institution and cost-share at least 50% of project cost; non-binding letters of intent were due December 10, 2025 with full applications due January 5, 2026.

The US Department of War announced a USD 29.9 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III award to ElementUS Minerals, LLC (doing business as ElementUSA) to construct a demonstration facility in Gramercy, Louisiana extracting gallium and scandium (and other critical minerals) from bauxite residue, a byproduct of alumina refining. The company holds proprietary extraction technology and access to over 30 million tons of bauxite residue feedstock, and the award is intended to establish one of the first domestic US producers of both gallium and scandium. Secondary development work occurs at the company's "Critical Resource Accelerator" in Cedar Park, Texas.

On 8 October 2025 the Australian Government (Albanese) and Queensland Government (Crisafulli) jointly announced up to AUD 600 million in co-funding — split evenly at AUD 300 million each — to keep Glencore's Mount Isa copper smelter and Townsville copper refinery operating through at least 2028. Funding is structured as three tranches of up to AUD 200 million released over three years, contingent on completion of a transformation study and further review points. The package protects more than 600 direct jobs at the smelter/refinery plus roughly 500 further jobs at the adjacent Phosphate Hill facility, and preserves roughly half of Australia's total copper smelting capacity. It follows Glencore's October 2023 announcement of intended closure and a July 2025 end-of-operations notice, with Glencore describing the deal as a short-term lifeline after absorbing sustained financial losses.

The US Department of War announced a USD 43.4 million Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III award to Alaska Range Resources, LLC — a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nova Minerals Limited — to fund the initial phase of an integrated domestic antimony supply chain at the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project, roughly 150 km northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. The award funds extraction, concentration and refining of stibnite ore into military-grade antimony trisulfide, used in munitions primer production and case hardening. It follows China's December 2024 ban on antimony exports to the US and is intended to establish a "full spectrum" domestic antimony mining and refining hub to reduce reliance on Chinese-controlled supply.

Invest Ontario, the Government of Ontario's investment-attraction agency, signed a non-binding term sheet to provide up to CAD 17.5 million (~USD 12.7 million) in state loan support to Electra Battery Materials Corporation toward its ~CAD 100 million project to build what the company describes as North America's first cobalt sulfate refinery, at Temiskaming Shores, Ontario. The funding is explicitly conditional on the parties reaching a definitive agreement and is intended to reduce reliance on foreign-controlled (principally Chinese) cobalt-refining capacity for EV and energy-storage battery supply chains.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced a CAD 25 million repayable loan to Braya Renewable Fuels to support the Come By Chance refinery's operational restart after a January-June 2025 shutdown caused by the expiry of US federal renewable-diesel tax credits. The loan offsets up to CAD 2 million/month of labour costs and up to CAD 1 million/month of eligible non-labour costs, capped at CAD 3 million monthly drawdown, with a five-year repayment term. It follows a similar CAD 49.5 million federal loan to the same facility in 2021 and a 2023 federal clean-fuels support package.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 200 million, five-year loan agreement with German multimetal producer Aurubis AG on 11 September 2025 to finance two strategic projects: a EUR 120 million expansion of the copper tankhouse at Aurubis's Bulgarian production site (raising refined-copper output roughly 50% to 340,000 tonnes/year, the largest single investment at the plant since its 2008 acquisition) and the EUR 190 million Complex Recycling Hamburg (CRH) program to scale up metal recycling capacity at Aurubis's German headquarters site. The EIB frames this as its first financing for the copper sector since adopting a new EIB Group strategy to secure EU access to critical raw materials, explicitly supporting the rollout of the Critical Raw Materials Act. Global Trade Alert separately logs the transaction as an "amber"-flagged state-loan intervention (state act 94442 / intervention 149387).

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 400 million in financing (BRL 320m from the Fundo Clima climate fund plus BRL 80m via the Finem line) for Lwart Soluções Ambientais SA to expand its used/contaminated lubricating-oil (Oluc) re-refining plant in Lençóis Paulista, São Paulo. The BRL 713 million total project will raise annual Oluc processing capacity by 144,000 m³, making the plant the world's second-largest by processing capacity and displacing demand for virgin base oil imports.

France's Ministry of Industry and Energy, under Minister Marc Ferracci, announced a EUR 200 million green-industry tax credit (crédit d'impôt au titre des investissements dans l'industrie verte, C3IV) for Imerys' EMILI project at Échassières (Allier) — France's first domestic lithium mining and refining operation. The award was made as the project's total construction cost was revised up to EUR 1.8 billion. Once operational (targeted 2030), the site is expected to produce 34,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide per year, enough to supply around 700,000 electric vehicles and cover over 20% of French battery factories' lithium needs. The award was announced alongside a wider package of C3IV support: seven critical-metals projects received a combined ~EUR 809 million in tax credits, part of ~EUR 5.4 billion in supported critical raw materials investment nationally.

On 4 August 2025, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) signed a USD 1.35 billion financing facility in favour of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), acting as Mandated Lead Arranger within a larger approximately USD 4 billion syndicated facility. The financing refinances capital expended on constructing the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Complex — the world's largest single-train refinery at 650,000 barrels per day — alleviating initial operating expenditure and strengthening DIL's balance sheet. Global Trade Alert logs the transaction as a state-linked loan intervention given Afreximbank's supranational, treaty-based public-development-finance mandate.

On 24 July 2025 the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Italian energy major Eni signed a EUR 500 million (approx. USD 587.8 million) 15-year finance contract to support conversion of Eni's Livorno refinery in Tuscany into a biorefinery. The project adds a biogenic pre-treatment unit and a 500,000-tonne/year Ecofining(TM) plant able to produce HVO diesel, HVO naphtha and bio-LPG from waste and plant-residue feedstocks, with future flexibility to shift output toward sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). It is Eni's third domestic biorefinery conversion (after Venice and Gela) and part of Enilive's plan to reach 5+ million tonnes/year of biorefinery capacity by 2030. Global Trade Alert logged the financing as a "Red" (trade/investment-distorting) state loan.

The European Commission approved a EUR 227.9 million (USD ~267.1 million) Innovation Fund grant for TotalEnergies Raffinerie Antwerpen N.V.'s "ARCaDe" (Antwerp Refinery Carbon capture and DeNOx) project, with the grant agreement signed on 22 July 2025. ARCaDe was one of six projects — spanning refinery decarbonisation, hydrogen, ocean energy, plastics recycling, and green heat — invited off the Innovation Fund 2023 general-call (IF23Call) reserve list after eight originally-selected projects withdrew from the March 2025 signing round; the six-project cohort was worth nearly EUR 319 million combined. The project targets carbon capture and NOx-reduction retrofits at TotalEnergies' Antwerp refinery, financed via the EU Emissions Trading System.

The Danish Energy Agency (Energistyrelsen) opened "Investeringsstøtten" (Investment Support), a DKK 1 billion grant pool running 2025-2030, targeting the CO2-intensive companies most exposed to Denmark's phased-in industrial CO2 tax. Eligible firms must emit on average at least 1,500 tonnes of CO2/year and see tax payments rise by at least 2.3% of gross value added under the new levy. In its first annual tranche (2025), the pool disbursed DKK 36 million, funding up to 60% of eligible costs at a rate of DKK 1,000 per tonne of CO2 abated for investments such as fossil-fuel boiler replacement with heat pumps or district heating. Qualifying sectors include general industrial processes, mineralogical processing, oil refining, domestic shipping ("indenrigssøfart" — including domestic ferries), and North Sea offshore activity. Legal basis is the "Aftale om Grøn skattereform for industri mv." (Green Tax Reform Agreement for Industry) of 22 June 2022, implemented via a Danish executive order (bekendtgørelse) on CO2-reduction subsidies for CO2-intensive enterprises, and notified to the European Commission under the General Block Exemption Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014.

On 22 July 2021, Australia's Minister for Industry, Science and Technology announced an AUD 14.8 million Modern Manufacturing Initiative grant to Lynas Rare Earths for a new Rare Earth Carbonate Refining Circuit at its planned Kalgoorlie, Western Australia processing facility. The published GrantConnect award record (GA200152, approved 16 June 2021) lists the contracted grant value to recipient Lynas Kalgoorlie Pty Ltd at AUD 15,618,958.30 (GST inclusive). The process reduces chemical consumption and processing cost for refining ore from Lynas's Mt Weld deposit onshore in Australia, reducing reliance on Chinese midstream rare earth refining capacity.