Mining Press Roundup: Elliott Escalates War on Northern Star With Six Board Nominees

Activist investor Elliott Investment Management escalated its campaign against Northern Star Resources on Wednesday, formally nominating six independent director candidates after talks with Australia's largest gold miner broke down. It's the sharpest turn yet in a fight that began in early June, and it comes as gold trades near two-month highs and boardrooms across the sector face fresh scrutiny over capital discipline. Elsewhere, NioCorp unveiled a feasibility study putting a $4 billion-plus valuation on its Nebraska critical minerals project, Blue Moon Metals deepened its bet on tungsten and antimony, and a Glencore-backed consortium moved to rescue Canada's Sherritt International.

Northern Star Resources: Elliott Nominates Six Directors as Talks Collapse

Elliott Investment Management, which now holds an economic interest of roughly 5.6% in Northern Star, sent a letter to the company's board on Wednesday nominating six independent director candidates after the two sides failed to agree on a path forward. According to the firm's press release, Elliott manages funds that together hold an investment of approximately 5.6% in Northern Star Resources Ltd and believes that after multiple years of execution and governance failures, the company needs a substantially enhanced board equipped to support the incoming chief executive and oversee an objective, thorough strategic and operational review.

The nominee slate is heavy with mining and finance pedigree. Paul Graves led Livent and its successor, Arcadium Lithium — at the time the world's third-largest lithium producer — from 2018 to 2025, and then Rio Tinto Lithium until 2026, and was previously CFO of FMC Corporation and a partner and global head of chemicals at Goldman Sachs. The list also includes Mick McMullen, who was CEO of Metals Acquisition Corp. from 2021 to 2025, Detour Gold from 2019 to 2020 and Stillwater Mining from 2013 to 2017, and Graham Shuttleworth, who was CFO of Barrick from 2019 to 2026, having joined through its merger with Randgold Resources.

The escalation follows an initial round of pressure that began in June. Elliott stepped up pressure on Northern Star Resources on Wednesday, proposing six independent director candidates after talks with Australia's largest gold miner failed to produce an agreement on board changes. Importantly, Elliott said it does not seek control of Northern Star's board or to place any of its own employees on the board, and that all six nominees would serve as independent directors representing all shareholders, with the firm preferring to reach an agreement with Northern Star rather than pursue unilateral action. The activist has argued that Northern Star's total shareholder returns have severely lagged those of its peers despite record gold prices, attributing the underperformance to execution and governance failures rather than the quality of the company's assets or workforce. Shares moved only modestly on the news — Northern Star shares rose 2.1% at one point, broadly in line with strength in gold-related stocks, though they remain down about 14% this year.

NioCorp Developments: Elk Creek Feasibility Study Puts $4 Billion-Plus Value on Nebraska Project

NioCorp Developments delivered one of the more consequential critical minerals updates of the year, releasing a 2026 feasibility study for its Elk Creek project in southeastern Nebraska that reimagines the mine as a 40-year, eight-product operation. According to the company, the study outlines the project's evolution into a 40-year, integrated U.S. operation with a net present value exceeding $4 billion that is expected to produce eight critical-mineral products from a single ore body.

The economics are striking for a domestic critical minerals project. The study projects life-of-mine revenue of $37.4 billion, average annual EBITDA of $608 million and a pre-tax NPV of $4.1 billion, supported by 45.9 million tons of proven and probable reserves. The product suite now goes well beyond NioCorp's original niobium-titanium-scandium plan: the Elk Creek project is expected to produce eight products, all designated by the US Government as critical minerals: ferroniobium, scandium trioxide, titanium tetrachloride, and several rare earth oxide products, including neodymium-praseodymium oxide, dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide, samarium-europium-gadolinium carbonate, and heavy rare earth carbonate.

The expansion isn't cheap. Initial capital costs rise 62% from $1.14 billion to $1.85 billion, reflecting inflation since 2022 and a substantially redesigned mine and processing plant that will produce eight products instead of three. But NioCorp CEO Mark Smith framed the update as a national-security play, saying "our 2026 feasibility study transforms the Elk Creek project into the kind of critical minerals project the United States needs to have online as soon as possible," and that "few critical minerals projects in the U.S. can match the Elk Creek Project's combination of a 40-year mine life, all major construction-related permits already in hand, and the planned production of eight critical mineral products from a single ore body." The study completion also clears a key hurdle for federal financing: completion of the study satisfies a key U.S. EXIM Bank due diligence requirement, allowing NioCorp to advance toward detailed engineering and EPC contracting, though any eventual EXIM financing amount and timing remain uncertain.

Blue Moon Metals: $20.5M Deal Adds 33 Tungsten and Antimony Projects

Blue Moon Metals is betting big on the two metals Washington has flagged as strategic vulnerabilities. The company announced Tuesday that it has acquired a set of 33 tungsten and antimony projects in the western U.S., including projects near its Springer complex, among the very few tungsten processing plants in North America.

The deal structure blends equity and cash: the private owner of the projects on BLM and Forest Service lands will receive 2.8 million common shares in Blue Moon for about $15.5 million, a 1% net smelter return royalty on each project and around $5 million in cash. Jason Dunning, Blue Moon's head of U.S. Special Projects, called it "a meaningful step in Blue Moon's strategy to build a leading U.S.-focused critical metals platform."

The antimony angle is notable given how thin U.S. supply chains are. Antimony is used in defence applications such as flame retardant fabrics, communication equipment, night vision goggles, ammunition hardening and laser sighting, and the U.S. has no mined production of antimony, relying on foreign suppliers such as China, with United States Antimony's Thompson Falls plant in Montana currently the only antimony smelter in the country. Several of the newly acquired sites carry serious historical grades — at least five of the acquired sites are past-producing or prospective high-grade antimony properties, with historical vein grades of 2 to 10 percent stibnite reported. The transaction is expected to close in October 2026, pending TSX Venture Exchange approval.

Sunrise Energy Metals: Friedland-Backed Scandium Miner Weighs US Redomicile

Robert Friedland's Sunrise Energy Metals is considering relocating its corporate home to the United States, just days after securing a landmark government financing commitment for its scandium project in Australia. Sunrise Energy Metals said Monday the company intends to pursue listing on a U.S. securities exchange, following news on Friday that the US Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital confirmed a conditional commitment of up to $400 million in financing to support the development of Sunrise's 100%-owned Syerston scandium project in New South Wales, Australia.

Friedland was blunt about the calculus. "It may become an American company," chairman Robert Friedland said Monday in a Bloomberg TV interview, adding "Uncle Sam likes these companies to be domiciled in the United States." He framed the underlying commodity in geopolitical terms: "the world has entered an era in which access to critical minerals will shape industrial strength, technology leadership and national security. Scandium is one of the clearest examples, supporting the technologies, industries and defence capabilities that will shape the coming decades."

The supply picture explains the urgency. The USGS estimates that global scandium production totalled about 80 tonnes in 2025, while Sunrise's Syerston project, designed to produce 60 tonnes annually and one of several proposed non-Chinese sources, has yet to begin construction. Separately, analysts have noted the project's economics are compelling if it clears financing and construction hurdles, with a study producing a net present value ranging from US$771 million in the lower case to around US$1 billion in the higher case, with internal rates of return between 67 and 83 per cent.

Sherritt International: Glencore-Backed Consortium Files Rival Rescue Bid

A U.S. investor group including commodities giant Glencore has thrown a lifeline — and a complication — into Sherritt International's restructuring. A U.S. investor group that includes Glencore is offering to recapitalize Sherritt International and acquire control of the beleaguered miner whose survival is in doubt following the suspension of its Cuban operations. The consortium is broader than Glencore alone: it also includes London-based Kyma Capital, Brevan Howard Asset Management co-founder Trifon Natsis and an unidentified U.S.-based anchor investor, and submitted its bid to Sherritt on June 26.

Terms favor existing shareholders getting a look-in. The offer includes immediate equity funding at 12 cents a share without a third-party debt-financing condition and gives eligible existing shareholders the right to invest at the same price as the consortium. Glencore's role goes beyond capital: Glencore would provide relevant technical, refining, marketing and critical-minerals expertise, the group says. The bid is explicitly framed as competition for an existing process — the consortium is touting its proposal as an alternative to a deal that Sherritt has been negotiating with Gillon Capital. At stake is one of North America's few nickel-cobalt refineries: the Fort Saskatchewan facility, which industry trackers note is one of only three nickel refineries in North America.

Volta Metals: Gallium Extends Well Beyond Springer's Known Rare Earth Zone

Volta Metals added a new wrinkle to its Ontario rare earth story this week, tracing gallium mineralization far outside the boundaries of its existing resource. According to the company, Volta Metals traced gallium 210 metres beneath the current open-pit outline at its Springer rare earth project in Ontario, widening the mineralized footprint beyond what the existing resource captures. Standout intercepts included hole SL26-31 returning 399 metres grading 51.8 grams gallium oxide per tonne from 3 metres downhole, while SL26-32 cut 53.9 metres grading 1.22% total rare earth oxides and 47 grams gallium oxide from 372.1 metres to the hole's end at 426 metres.

Gallium isn't yet part of Springer's official resource, but that could change. Gallium is absent from Springer's February resource of 56.6 million indicated tonnes grading 0.7% total rare earth oxides containing about 396,000 tonnes of minerals and 119.5 million inferred tonnes at 0.6% for about 693,000 tonnes of TREO, and if recovery work supports its inclusion, Volta plans to add gallium to a resource update later this year, potentially giving Springer a second source of value as Western governments seek alternatives to China-dominated gallium supply. Metallurgical work is underway on multiple fronts, with Volta testing gallium bioleaching with Laurentian University and working with Idaho National Laboratory on rare earth and gallium processing.

Gold Fields: Salares Norte Offsets Weakness Elsewhere in the Portfolio

Gold Fields' Chilean bet is paying off just as other assets in the portfolio hit turbulence. Per the company's operational update, Salares Norte, a mine high up in Chile's Atacama desert that was the bane of CEO Mike Fraser in his first year, is now promising to be his deliverance, with an "outperformance" of Salares Norte more than offsetting difficulties at its mines in Ghana and Australia this year and taking Gold Fields' output to as much as 2.6 million ounces, the higher end of its forecast production for 2026. Notably, that strength is holding up despite a deep freeze in the region during winter. The mine, which began commercial production in late 2024, has quickly become one of the company's most important growth assets as it works to smooth out execution issues across a geographically diverse portfolio.

What It Means

Today's press releases point to a sector where boardroom accountability and critical-minerals nationalism are converging. Elliott's move from a passive stake to a formal six-nominee slate at Northern Star signals that activist investors are done waiting for gold miners to self-correct even with bullion trading near record territory — gold changed hands at $4,371/oz Wednesday, according to market data, yet that tailwind hasn't been enough to shield boards from scrutiny over execution failures. Meanwhile, NioCorp, Blue Moon and Sunrise Energy Metals are all leaning into the same thesis: Washington's appetite for domestic supply of niobium, scandium, tungsten and antimony is translating into real capital commitments, whether through EXIM Bank diligence, Department of War loans, or M&A that consolidates fragmented junior land positions into "platforms."

The Sherritt bidding war and Elliott's Northern Star campaign also underscore that distressed and underperforming miners are attracting serious strategic capital rather than being left to founder — Glencore's willingness to backstop a nickel-cobalt refinery in Alberta, and Elliott's push to remake an A$26 billion gold major's board, both suggest deep-pocketed players see mispriced assets across the sector. With copper testing record levels amid the Grasberg smelter disruption and gold holding above $4,300, according to market data, the capital is clearly there — the question emerging from today's news is who gets to deploy it, and on whose terms.

This roundup covers press releases published on August 12, 2026. Company announcements are sourced from mining industry wire services. For corrections or updates, contact contact@stakeandpaper.com.