Mining Press Roundup: ACG Metals Buys a Turkish Gold Feed as Brazil Makes Its Move on Critical Minerals

Copper-focused ACG Metals is buying its way into a longer gold production runway in Türkiye, while Brazil is trying to write new rules for how foreign capital gets access to its critical minerals wealth. Both stories, alongside a wave of rare earth, tungsten and copper news, point to the same underlying theme: strategic minerals are increasingly a matter of national policy as much as geology, and the companies that control feed, processing, or permitting are the ones commanding attention today.

ACG Metals: Buying a Gold Lifeline for Gediktepe

London-listed ACG Metals has entered into a binding agreement with Turkish nickel/cobalt processor Meta Nikel Kobalt Madencilik Sanayi ve Ticaret to acquire 100% ownership of mining licence 60926, including the Keşkek gold project, for $4-million in cash and potential contingent payments of $3.85-million at start of production in mid-2027. The deal also carries a 1% gross revenue royalty and a per-ounce payment for any additional gold discovered outside the defined pit, according to the announcement.

The logic is straightforward: ACG's Gediktepe mine, an operating open pit mine located in the Balikesir Province of Western Turkey, producing gold and silver from oxide ore, is running down its own oxide feed, and Keşkek is designed to plug that gap. Keşkek provides a new source of oxide ore within 70 km of ACG's Gediktepe mine in Türkiye and is expected to extend the utilisation of the company's heap leach facility by several years. ACG's technical team pegs the pit itself at roughly 300 kt grading 0.90 g/t Au at an estimated waste-to-ore strip ratio of 1:1, while the broader licence area is estimated to hold a resource of 1.5 Mt grading 0.65 g/t Au, with exploration potential for an additional 5-10 Mt.

Metallurgically, the fit looks clean: metallurgical testwork undertaken by ACG supports the planned processing routes, indicating column-leach gold recoveries of 75-80%, increasing to approximately 85% using Gediktepe's existing patented proprietary recovery process. ACG is also leaning on infrastructure it already controls — Uluova, ACG's existing mining contractor, is already established at the META site, supporting efficient trucking operations — which should keep capital costs down. Chairman and CEO Artem Volynets framed the deal as "an attractive opportunity to extend our gold production profile by securing a nearby source of gold-bearing oxide ore that can be processed using existing infrastructure at Gediktepe." Total spend on acquisition, exploration and eventual closure is pegged at roughly US$15 million over ten years. For a company built around copper roll-up ambitions, it's a reminder that byproduct gold economics can be just as important as the base-metal thesis.

Brazil: Courting Capital While Tightening Its Grip

Brazil's government is walking a fine line between attracting the foreign capital its critical minerals sector needs and making sure more of the value stays home. According to MINING.COM, Brazil is courting the foreign capital needed to develop its vast critical mineral resources while pushing to keep more processing and industrial value at home — and moving to give the government new powers to scrutinize who controls strategic assets.

The tension is already visible in existing deals. Regulators have flagged concerns that Serra Verde's 15-year offtake commits its first-stage output of mixed rare earth carbonate abroad, while Brasília wants the country to develop domestic capacity to separate individual rare earth oxides. A lawmaker behind the new legislative push argued that "For the Brazilian state, the National Policy for Critical and Strategic Minerals will make it possible to establish the guidelines needed to foster research, mining and transformation of critical and strategic minerals in a sustainable way."

The stakes are real given the scale of interest already flowing in. According to Diálogo Américas, Brazil holds the world's second-largest rare earth reserves at approximately 11 million metric tons, plus significant lithium and niobium deposits essential for defense and technology. Yet the country still exports mostly raw material — Brazil must develop processing and refining capabilities to create higher-value products, as it currently exports primarily mineral concentrates while China controls 90 percent of global supply chains. As MINING.COM's report notes, the next test is whether Brasília can use that interest to accelerate investment without deterring the capital it needs, while ensuring that more of the processing, technology and industrial value remains in Brazil. This comes on the heels of Vale reportedly shelving its base metals IPO plans amid similar political pushback over control of strategic assets — a sign Brazil's critical minerals ambitions and its instinct for state oversight are increasingly colliding.

Ionic Rare Earths & US Strategic Metals: A $100 Million Bet on Magnet Recycling

Ionic Rare Earths and Missouri-based US Strategic Metals (USSM) have moved their partnership from memorandum to term sheet, agreeing to build a magnet recycling campus that could become a meaningful piece of America's rare earth supply chain. Ionic USA and USSM have agreed to form a 50-50 JV that plans to develop an integrated campus for the production of critical minerals and metals at USSM's 1,800-acre (728.4 ha) fully permitted site near Fredericktown.

The facility's initial focus is squarely on recovering value from scrap. The JV aims to construct one or more magnet and other rare earth recycling facilities at the site, processing recycled permanent neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) and samarium-cobalt (SmCo) magnets and magnet scrap. The companies also plan to evaluate recycling heavy rare earth elements (REEs). Funding is heavily weighted toward USSM: the JV will be funded with $100 million for the construction of initial NdFeB and SmCo magnet recycling facilities, comprised of $95 million funding from USSM and a $5 million equity contribution split with Ionic.

IonicRE managing director Tim Harrison called the approach a shortcut to supply-chain security, noting "the proposed JV will seek to provide IonicRE with a practical and capital-efficient method of building rare earth magnet recycling capacity in the United States, the world's biggest economy," adding "magnet recycling is a fast and low-cost pathway to developing a secure, sovereign and sustainable rare earths supply chain." Ionic brings technical credibility to the table too — the company has previously demonstrated the ability to recover separated rare-earth oxides from waste streams at grades exceeding 99.9 percent at its UK facility, per Investing News. With Pentagon rare earth demand projected to triple by 2030 even as current magnet production capacity struggles to keep pace, recycling capacity like Fredericktown's could become an increasingly strategic asset.

Faraday Copper: Drilling Extends Arizona Cathode Case

Faraday Copper's latest results from Copper Creek in Arizona are reinforcing the company's pitch for early, low-capital cathode production — a message that matters given how much capital has already flowed into the sector. According to the company's release, drilling at its Copper Creek project in Arizona has expanded shallow oxide and sulphide mineralization, strengthening the case for future copper cathode production as it prepares to add the neighbouring San Manuel property. Four holes at Copper Giant East cut near-surface oxide mineralization over roughly 50 to 100 metres, while drilling at American Eagle extended sulphide mineralization into a previously untested trend.

Among the standout numbers, drill hole FCD-26-192 returned 19 metres grading 0.55% copper from 42 metres depth, 350 metres south of the American Eagle breccia, while drill hole FCD-26-190 cut 100.8 metres grading 0.22% copper from surface at Copper Giant East. CEO Paul Harbidge said the results support the potential "to expand near-surface mineralization at Copper Creek," adding that oxide intercepts near Copper Giant "further supports the potential for additional near-surface oxide resources, which could enhance the opportunity for future copper cathode production."

Canaccord Genuity's Dalton Baretto called the consistent intercepts encouraging, saying they are "underpinning the cathode opportunity" at the project. Shares still slipped amid broader market jitters — shares in Faraday Copper fell 3.8% to C$5.04 apiece by mid-Thursday in Toronto amid lingering market concerns tied to the Iran War, including inflation and elevated bond yields that have weighed on junior miners in recent sessions — a reminder that even solid drill results can't fully insulate juniors from macro volatility. Faraday now carries a market value of roughly C$1.48 billion ($1.07 billion).

South32 Hermosa: Federal Green Light Advances a 70-Year Arizona Project

South32's Hermosa project has cleared its last major federal hurdle, with the US Forest Service signing off on the mine plan of operations needed to build critical infrastructure on federal land. Hermosa hosts one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc deposits, a battery-grade manganese deposit and the emerging Peak copper discovery. Together, they could support a 70-year operation producing five federally designated critical minerals.

The approval covers essential infrastructure beyond the mine's private land holdings: federal approval covered infrastructure crossing public land, including a high-voltage transmission line, a second access road, tailings storage and water discharge points. Construction is already well underway, with construction already half-way complete on private land with zinc mining underground expected in late 2027 and first zinc product from the processing plant in the first half of 2028, the company said.

The project carries symbolic weight in Washington's push to fast-track domestic critical minerals output — Hermosa was the first mining project added to, covered under, and completed in the federal FAST-41 permitting program, a process reserved for infrastructure projects that must meet certain criteria to demonstrate how they will benefit the US as the critical minerals race accelerates. South32 Hermosa president Pat Risner called it a turning point, saying, "This is the moment when years of planning, environmental study, consultation and permitting turn into action."

Northcliff Resources: Tungsten Prices Transform Sisson's Economics

Northcliff Resources has delivered one of the more dramatic economic turnarounds in this roundup, with a feasibility study update showing the Sisson tungsten-molybdenum project in New Brunswick is now worth several multiples of what it would cost to build — a sharp reversal from over a decade ago. According to Northcliff, its new feasibility study for the Sisson tungsten-molybdenum project in New Brunswick puts its post-tax value at more than four times the cost to build it, compared with less than one times initial capital in a study 13 years ago. The updated study estimates a C$6.9-billion ($4.98-billion) post-tax net present value (NPV) at an 8% discount rate against initial capital of C$1.53 billion, for a 50% internal rate of return and 1.6-year payback.

That's a stark contrast to the 2013 study, which put post-tax NPV at $418 million against C$579 million in initial capital, with a 16% return and 4.5-year payback. CEO Andrew Ing attributed the shift directly to commodity markets: "Metal prices, particularly for tungsten, have increased since 2013, and the change in exchange rate have improved the financial results."

The scale of the planned operation is significant for a metal where supply is tightly concentrated. The 27-year open-pit operation would process 30,000 tonnes per day and produce an average 598,000 metric tonne units, or mtu, of tungsten trioxide annually, plus 4.2 million lb. of molybdenum. Strategically, at planned output, the mine could supply roughly a quarter of current tungsten mine production outside China, which dominates world supply. The project has already drawn government backing, having been fast-tracked by Ottawa to its Major Projects Office in November as Canada seeks to rebuild domestic tungsten supply. The project has major federal and provincial environmental approvals and received US$15 million from the U.S. Department of Defense and $8.2 million from Ottawa last year. Northcliff is now targeting a construction decision in late 2027 with production beginning in 2030, according to the Northern Miner.

What It Means

Today's announcements share a common thread: strategic minerals policy is now inseparable from mine economics. ACG Metals is stitching together oxide feed sources to keep an existing gold circuit running rather than betting on a single deposit. Brazil is trying to leverage its enormous rare earth and lithium endowment into domestic processing capacity rather than settling for raw-material exports. Ionic Rare Earths and USSM are betting that recycled magnet scrap — not new mining — is the fastest route to a secure US rare earth supply chain. And both South32's Hermosa and Northcliff's Sisson show how government fast-tracking and commodity price cycles can turn marginal or stalled projects into flagship national-security assets almost overnight.

For investors, the pattern reinforces where capital is being pulled: critical minerals with defense or battery applications — zinc, manganese, tungsten, rare earths, copper — are attracting permitting priority, government co-investment, and corporate deal-making that base metals alone rarely command. With gold trading at $4,423/oz and copper miners (COPX) holding near $90.66 per market data, the fundamentals are supportive, but today's news suggests the more durable story is about who controls processing and feed, not just who controls the rock in the ground.

This roundup covers press releases published on September 7, 2026. Company announcements are sourced from mining industry wire services. For corrections or updates, contact contact@stakeandpaper.com.