Almonty Industries (ASX:AII), already having a pretty cracking year off the back of U.S. critical mineral exposure, market dynamics around tungsten, and shareholder enthusiasm, has now got a new feather in its hat.
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(For those out of the loop, Almonty started the year under $1.00/sh; it’s now $2.84.)
Almonty on Wednesday revealed it’s now sitting on the U.S.-based Critical Minerals Forum (CMF), a not-for-profit (NFP) funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – the sometimes-shadowy R&D division of the U.S. military.
But Almonty’s involvement doesn’t have so much to do with any links between tungsten and defence manufacturing (or not yet anyway) but rather DARPA’s “Open Price Exploration for National Security” (OPEN) initiative.
That program is basically a U.S.-funded real-time commodities pricing index DARPA described upon its launch last year as a means to “better understand component-based pricing information and supply and demand for a range of critical commodities such as base metals, rare earth metals, and other materials.”
In the context of Almonty’s access to the data by way of its CMF membership, however, it appears suitable privately owned mining companies are being encouraged to access the data to make optimal decisions on location and offtake pricing.
Presumably, then, this is a strategy to have the data allow better streamlining of new critical minerals projects in the U.S.
That desire falls under national security in the same way all countries classify critical minerals as defence-oriented: Principally, a decoupling from China’s critical minerals and rare earths supply chains.
“Almonty was invited to join the CMF as the main Western tungsten producer and accepted membership into this U.S. DoD-sponsored policy think tank,” the company wrote.
“The Critical Minerals Forum facilitates the collaboration needed for increased and reliable production of critical minerals.”
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In what is a very flavour-of-the-moment addition to management’s commentary on the move, for some reason, the company – and its CEO, Lewis Black – felt compelled to talk about AI.
“We are privileged to be a part of CMF and to leverage its AI-driven forecasts, providing transparent and credible pricing, supply, and demand data for critical minerals,” Black said. (Or was possibly obliged to add.)
AII last traded at $2.84/sh.
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