Mining Press Roundup: China's Top Steelmaker Circles a Bite of BHP's Iron Ore Crown Jewel

China's largest steelmaker is circling a piece of one of the world's great iron ore mines. China Baowu Steel Group is weighing a minority stake in BHP's Jimblebar operation in Western Australia's Pilbara region, according to Reuters sources cited by MINING.COM — a deal that, if it happens, would put the state-linked buyer of Australian ore directly into the ownership structure of the mine that ships it. It's the kind of headline that captures where mining M&A is heading in 2026: strategic buyers no longer content to just purchase the commodity, they want equity in the rock itself.

Baowu: Eyeing a Slice of BHP's Jimblebar

China Baowu Steel Group is considering buying a minority stake in BHP's Jimblebar iron ore mine in Western Australia, a move that could deepen Chinese involvement in one of the miner's biggest operations, with the world's largest steelmaker weighing a 15% to 25% interest that would come directly from BHP's holding. The numbers involved are substantial: Jimblebar produced about 62.5 million tonnes of iron ore in fiscal 2026, roughly a quarter of BHP's iron ore output. The mine, valued at about $3.2 billion when it opened in 2014, produces ore worth roughly $6.2 billion at current prices.

Baowu has expressed interest but has not made a decision, and there is no certainty that talks will result in a transaction. For BHP, the logic is straightforward: selling part of its Jimblebar holding could bring a major customer directly into the ownership structure while leaving the miner with control of the operation. For Baowu, a stake could provide closer access to the raw material feeding its production of steel sheet, coils, bars and rods. But the deal wouldn't be a slam dunk — any transaction would come against the backdrop of Australia's increased scrutiny of Chinese investment in critical and strategic resources, potentially adding a regulatory dimension to negotiations. Analysts have also flagged an odd wrinkle: to spread risk, miners tend to sell stakes to new projects as opposed to well-established mines like Jimblebar, making this a departure from the usual playbook if it closes.

South32: Hermosa Clears Its Last Big US Hurdle

South32 finally has what it needed. The U.S. Forest Service signed South32 Hermosa's Final Mine Plan of Operation during a ceremony at the project site in Southern Arizona, authorizing South32 to conduct operations on U.S. Forest Service land. The approval is historic in a bureaucratic sense: it 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, rigorous criteria to demonstrate how they will benefit the nation.

The project itself is a critical-minerals heavyweight. Hermosa hosts one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc deposits, a battery-grade manganese deposit and the emerging Peak copper discovery, and together they could support a 70-year operation producing five federally designated critical minerals. South32 Hermosa president Pat Risner struck a triumphant tone, saying "This is the moment when years of planning, environmental study, consultation and permitting turn into action." With federal sign-off in hand, South32 plans to begin initial earthworks activities and surveys to support exploration drilling and geotechnical investigations in the coming weeks, representing the first physical activity enabled by the federal approval. Construction on private land is already about half done, according to the company, with zinc mining underground expected in late 2027 and first zinc product from the processing plant in the first half of 2028.

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

Ionic Rare Earths is putting real money behind America's rare earth ambitions. The Australian company has signed a joint venture term sheet with Missouri-based US Strategic Metals to build rare earth permanent magnet recycling capacity at USSM's fully permitted processing site near Fredericktown, Missouri. The parties have agreed on a non-binding basis to form a 50-50 joint venture to develop one or more magnet recycling facilities as part of an integrated critical minerals campus on USSM's site.

The financing structure leans heavily on the American partner: the parties intend to fund the JV with $100 million for construction of the initial neodymium-iron-boron and samarium-cobalt recycling facilities, comprised of $95 million in funding from USSM alongside a $5 million equity contribution split equally between the two partners. USSM co-founder and CEO Stacy Hastie framed it as a national-security play, stating "USSM is focused on being a leader in the establishment of supply chains for critical minerals and heavy rare earths and this agreement is a major step toward achieving our vision... The United States will not be left behind in the race to build the industries key to national security and our economic future." The plant would slot into an already-active site — the company is building capacity there to produce alloy-grade cobalt, antimony sulfide, nickel metal, lithium carbonate, copper cathode and rare earth — and it would target the heavy rare earths Beijing has restricted for export, including dysprosium, terbium, samarium, gadolinium and holmium.

Faraday Copper: Drilling Deepens the Cathode Case at Copper Creek

Faraday Copper keeps finding more of what it's looking for in Arizona. The company says 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. One standout intercept, drill hole FCD-26-192, returned 19 metres grading 0.55% copper from 42 metres depth, 350 metres south of the American Eagle breccia.

CEO Paul Harbidge said the results support the potential "to expand near-surface mineralization at Copper Creek," adding that the copper oxide mineralization intersected east of 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 intercepts encouraging, saying they are "underpinning the cathode opportunity" at the project. The stock dipped slightly on the news even so — shares in Faraday Copper fell 3.8% to C$5.04 apiece by mid-Thursday in Toronto amid lingering broader market concerns that have weighed on junior miners in recent sessions, underscoring how even solid drill results can get overshadowed by macro jitters.

Vale: Base Metals IPO Shelved as Brazil Balks

Not every strategic pivot goes as planned. Vale is pumping the brakes on one of the year's most anticipated mining listings. Vale has shelved plans for an initial public offering of its critical-minerals subsidiary Vale Base Metals Ltd. amid political opposition in Brazil to potentially losing control over strategic mining assets, according to The Globe and Mail. The listing could still be revived at a later date, according to the report.

The unit itself is sizable: VBM holds Vale's global portfolio of copper, nickel and cobalt operations across Canada, Brazil, Japan, Britain and Indonesia. The timing is notable given how far along preparations had gotten — Vale Base Metals CEO Shaun Usmar had told BNN Bloomberg Television in March that the company was working to get the business ready for a potential IPO by midyear. The pause comes even as the underlying commodity thesis strengthens: the strategy comes as copper, a key metal for electrification and energy infrastructure, has outperformed nickel, with copper prices climbing about 45% over the past year, roughly four times nickel's gain. Brazil's reluctance to cede control of strategic assets echoes a broader resource-nationalism current running through global mining policy this year — one that's cutting against the very capital-markets logic that made the IPO attractive in the first place.

South America: Four Nations Push a Coordinated Critical Minerals Play

The regional cooperation signed in late August is starting to shape investor conversations. Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru signed a joint declaration on strategic minerals on Aug. 28, establishing a regional framework to promote responsible mining investment, technical cooperation and deeper integration across mineral supply chains. As MINING.COM noted in fresh analysis today, Verisk Maplecroft's country-risk data identifies Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru as attractive critical-minerals markets because they combine large deposits with relatively lower resource-nationalism risks and improving operating environments.

But the coordination alone won't build mines. Geological potential and regional agreements alone will not unlock the capital needed to develop them — permitting, fiscal stability and policy continuity will determine whether South America can convert its mineral power play into new mines, processing capacity and a lasting place in global supply chains. The declaration itself was largely aspirational — it establishes a cooperation framework rather than committing to specific mine developments or production targets — but it lands at a moment when the energy transition and the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure could increase demand for critical minerals by 400 to 600 percent over the next decade, according to comments from the ministerial meeting in Santiago.

Northcliff Resources: Tungsten Prices Rewrite Sisson's Math

Rounding out the week's most consequential milestone, Northcliff Resources' feasibility update on its Sisson tungsten-molybdenum project in New Brunswick shows just how much the tungsten market has shifted. The new study 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. Specifically, the updated study estimates a $6.9-billion post-tax net present value at an 8% discount rate against initial capital of $1.53 billion, for a 50% internal rate of return and 1.6-year payback.

At planned output, the 27-year open-pit operation would process 30,000 tonnes per day and produce an average 598,000 metric tonne units of tungsten trioxide annually, plus 4.2 million lb. of molybdenum, and at planned output, the mine could supply roughly a quarter of current tungsten mine production outside China, which dominates world supply. The project already has government backing behind it — it received US$15 million from the U.S. Department of Defense and $8.2 million from Ottawa last year, and Sisson was fast-tracked by Ottawa to its Major Projects Office in November as Canada seeks to rebuild domestic tungsten supply.

What It Means

Today's press releases share a common thread: strategic minerals are increasingly being fought over at the ownership level, not just the offtake level. Baowu doesn't just want Jimblebar's ore, it wants a stake in the mine. Ionic Rare Earths and USSM aren't content to trade magnet scrap, they're building a domestic supply chain from the ground up. And Brazil's political resistance to Vale's IPO shows that even majority owners are getting nervous about foreign capital diluting control of strategic assets. Meanwhile, permitting momentum in the US — South32's Hermosa breakthrough chief among it — suggests that federal streamlining programs like FAST-41 are starting to deliver tangible results for critical-minerals developers after years of delay.

Market data backs up the mood. Copper miners (COPX) closed at $91.25, up 1.5% on the day, while uranium (URA) jumped 3.1% to $45.70, according to Polygon data. Silver and gold both posted strong gains, at $66.97/oz and $4,480/oz respectively, per the latest market data — a signal that capital is still chasing hard assets even as broader equity markets, with the S&P 500 up 1.0% to $773.17, hold near highs. For juniors like Faraday Copper still proving out cathode-scale copper resources, and majors like Northcliff riding a tungsten repricing, the message from the market is the same one echoing through today's headlines: critical minerals are no longer a niche trade, they're the main event.

This roundup covers press releases published on September 4, 2026. Company announcements are sourced from mining industry wire services. For corrections or updates, contact contact@stakeandpaper.com.