One year on, here’s what’s transpired since the $13bn Trump-Albanese minerals

• Austrade says over A$6bn in conditional funding support has been issued for critical minerals projects off the back of last year’s framework agreement
• Three projects have reached FID, including Sunrise Energy Metals’ Syerston scandium project on Monday
• Astron received conditional approval for the Donald joint venture with Energy Fuels, with FID targeted this quarter

A little over one year ago, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made for Washington DC for a key meeting with US President Donald Trump.

The outcome was the signing of a critical minerals framework agreement, under which Australia and the US each pledged at least US$1bn in financing towards a pipeline of priority projects valued at US$8.5bn – around A$13bn at the time – across the two countries.

At the time, that framework was focused on securing supply of critical minerals essential to energy, technology and defence where the West is largely reliant on China, an increasingly untenable position as geopolitical fault lines grow.

Agreed terms within the framework include calls to accelerate permitting, use price mechanisms to protect domestic critical minerals industries, strengthen rules on asset sales that don’t pass muster on ‘national security grounds’ and mobilise government and private sector capital for mining and processing operations.

According to Austrade, over A$6bn in conditional financing support has been issued across more than a dozen projects to date.

The question was, where would that capital be flowing and how many projects would be enticed into development thanks to the framework.

So far at least three projects in Australia have reached FID thanks, in part, to funding secured off the back of the critical minerals framework.

We’ve run through publicly available announcements to show where capital has been committed and who could be the next cab off the rank.

Who’s already backed?

Arafura Rare Earths (ASX:ARU) broke ground on the Nolans project on October 8, having been assigned a priority project designation under the framework.

The NT mine was among the first developments to get support, with the Gina Rinehart-backed company announcing conditional approval last October for US$100m of funding from Export Finance Australia and up to US$300m in a letter of support from the US Export-Import Bank, yet to be confirmed as a formal facility.

That was on top of US$533m committed by Australian government agencies in 2024 and a A$200m investment from the NRFC, which will be drawn down as construction continues.

The mine has an offtake letter of support for up to 500tpa for the Australian Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve and could send material for America’s Project Vault critical minerals stockpile through an offtake with metals trader Traxys, understood to be the counterparty on an 850tpa offtake deal expanded in October.

It also has offtakes with Hyundai and Kia in South Korea and Siemens Gamesa in Germany, supplying Western rare earth oxides for EV motors and wind turbines.

Alcoa Corporation (ASX:AAI) reached a final investment decision in July on a gallium plant, which will extract the semiconductor input as a by-product of alumina processing at Wagerup in WA’s south.

The plant is expected to produce 100t or around a tenth of the world’s gallium supply per year, supporting 200 construction jobs and 20 permanent roles.

The US government announced US$174m in funding from the Department of War in August, with EFA also providing support along with Sojitz and the Japanese government.

Robert Friedland-chaired Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX:SRL) announced FID on Monday for the Syerston scandium project, which is expected to cost US$322m to build and produce 60t of scandium oxide a year for 32 years.

An important metal for the energy infrastructure enabling the rollout of AI data centres, the US Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital has committed up to US$400m in conditional long-term debt financing for the New South Wales mine development.

$2bn capped Sunrise’s shares have tumbled 43% in the past month, but have surged over 500% in the past five years.

The latest winners

Astron (ASX:ATR) is the latest beneficiary of the deal, announcing last week the conditional approval of debt funding for its Donald project.

Export Finance Australia and the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation have together conditionally approved up to $180m to make up the bulk of a proposed $200m senior project finance debt facility for Donald.

It’s something that lines up the mineral sands and rare earths development for a final investment decision in Q4 of 2026.

Located 300km northwest of Melbourne, the site will be a 51-49 JV between Astron and its US partner Energy Fuels (ASX:EF2), a uranium firm which has read the tea leaves and diversified into rare earths with the White Mesa mill in Utah.

It makes a mixed rare earth carbonate from monazite concentrate, the rare earths mineral typically found in mineral sands deposits.

Its plan is to head further downstream into metals, alloys and magnets, making EF2 and, by proxy, Astron a key cog in US plans to separate its rare earths supply chain from China.

Notably a Japanese manufacturer recently qualified separated terbium oxide, a high-value heavy rare earth almost exclusively made by China, at White Mesa. That means it has qualification of the full suite of magnet rare earths – lights neodymium-praseodymium and heavies dysprosium and terbium.

The first stage of Donald will produce 9000t of rare earth concentrate per year for processing by Energy Fuels into 1000tpa of NdPr oxide, as well as Tb and Dy, with EF2 currently installing capacity to process 21tpa of Tb and 122tpa of Dy by early 2028 in Utah.

EF2, which is earning into Donald via equity funding of the first $183m of project development costs, anticipates using the concentrate from Donald to supply 75% of an expanded 3600tpa permanent magnet plant in Korea purchased in its takeover of Australian Strategic Materials, as well as 77% of the magnet manufacturing capacity across South Carolina, Germany and Finland it is acquiring in a takeover of Germany’s Vacuumschmelze.

Investments will be made by government bodies on both sides of the Pacific, with Energy Fuels garnering a conditional US$725m loan commitment in June from the US Office of Strategic Capital to expand its REE processing capacity in the States.

Future developments

VHM (ASX:VHM), a prospective supplier to the also Canberra-backed Iluka Resources (ASX:ILU) Eneabba rare earths refinery, announced a non-binding and conditional letter of support for its Goschen project in Victoria last October from EFA for up to A$75m, as well as a letter of interest for up to US$200m from EXIM.

The project, along with a mineral sands by-product, would produce 115tpa of dysprosium-terbium feedstock and 990tpa of NdPr in a rare earth concentrate. After a DFS update in September it remains pre-FID.

Northern Minerals (ASX:NTU) and RZ Resources have also received support for Australian rare earths projects in the form of US letters of intent, as has Latrobe Magnesium (ASX:LMG) for magnesium plants in Victoria and, subsequently, South Carolina.

Idemitsu-backed Graphinex received a US$860m letter of interest from EXIM, the largest single recipient of US$2.2bn (A$3.7bn) in US funding promises from the original slate of projects identified in October last year. It is expecting to mine and produce graphite concentrate in Queensland at the Esmeralda project, alongside downstream production facilities for battery anodes.

Australian-based Global Advanced Metals, owned by private equity firm RCF Capital Funds, has received a commitment for US$25m from EXIM for tantalum and niobium production at a plant in Boyertown, Pennsylvania.

Mineral sands giant Tronox and nickel-cobalt hopeful Ardea Resources (ASX:ARL) have also received letters of support for a rare earths refinery and the Kalgoorlie nickel project, respectively.

Tungsten darling EQ Resources (ASX:EQR) announced a letter of interest from EXIM to supply a 10-year debt facility of up to US$34m to support its Mt Carbine expansion project in Queensland, which was announced in June 2025, four months before the framework was announced. But a surge in tungsten prices to record levels meant it was able to fund the expansion from cash flow.

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Astron is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

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