USA - rebuilding critical mineral stockpiles

Below is a ling to the USA' Govt Accountability Office who have a responsibility to advise the Dept of Defense on matters such as the National Defense Stockpile of critical minerals including TUNGSTEN.
Further below is an 8 minute podcast of an interview with Bill Russell, Director of GAO - this is very much worth a listen to get a sense of how EQR, as a "now recognised" domestic source of tungsten, can be a very important part of their objective to reestablish their stockpiles to a "break glass" level.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106959

https://www.gao.gov/assets/880/870938.mp3

Below is a quote from the website which affords a sense of how critical is the USA' need to source minerals and how much financial muscle they are prepared to muster to back that pursuit.


" Over 90 percent of the materials DOD identified in shortfall in fiscal year 2023 had either zero or one domestic supplier. In addition to stockpiling, DOD is mitigating some of the risks of relying on foreign or a single domestic source of supply by recycling materials from no-longer-used equipment, qualifying new domestic sources, and funding research and development projects to identify new ways to process critical materials. Even with these efforts, DOD estimates it will need $18.5 billion to address all shortfalls identified in fiscal year 2023 "

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