Mining Press Roundup: Empire Metals' 8.2-Billion-Tonne Titanium Discovery Headlines a Day of Critical Minerals Breakthroughs

Empire Metals sent its London-listed shares sharply higher Wednesday after confirming its Pitfield project in Western Australia as the world's largest titanium resource, a dramatic upgrade that more than triples the deposit's previously estimated size. The announcement lands amid a broader wave of critical minerals news today — from a Pentagon-backed scandium mine in Australia to new rare-earth-free magnet manufacturing capacity in Minnesota — that highlights just how aggressively capital is chasing supply chain independence from China across a widening list of strategic metals.

Empire Metals: Pitfield Confirmed as World's Largest Titanium Resource

Empire Metals announced an upgraded Mineral Resource Estimate at its Pitfield Project in Western Australia on Wednesday, and the numbers are staggering. The company is reporting an upgraded Mineral Resource Estimate confirming the project as the world's largest titanium resource. Empire Metals has upgraded the Pitfield Project's JORC-compliant resource to 8.16 billion tonnes at 4.3% TiO2, confirming it as the world's largest titanium deposit and introducing the project's first Measured Resource category.

The scale of the jump is notable: the new estimate marks a significant increase from the maiden resource announced in October 2025 of 2.2 billion tonnes at 5.1% TiO2 containing 113 million tonnes. Managing Director Shaun Bunn called it a landmark for the company, saying "this upgraded MRE is a landmark moment for Empire Metals and confirms Pitfield as the world's largest titanium resource... To have defined 8.16 billion tonnes at 4.3% TiO2, containing 349 million tonnes of TiO2, underlines the sheer scale of this discovery."

Crucially, the update includes the project's first Measured Resource category, a milestone that de-risks the path toward development. The JORC-compliant estimate includes Pitfield's first Measured Resource of 374 million tonnes at 5.8% TiO2, containing 21.6 million tonnes of TiO2, with a further 3.65 billion tonnes classified as Indicated and 4.2 billion tonnes as Inferred. The company also flagged a large near-surface zone amenable to low-cost extraction: Empire highlighted a 4.39 billion-tonne near-surface weathered zone grading 4.4% TiO2, where soft, friable material occurs from surface with minimal overburden. Shares responded immediately, climbing to 49.4p in early trading on Wednesday following the resource upgrade. Bunn indicated the company isn't done drilling, with plans for a further upgrade targeted for mid-2027, per the announcement.

Sunrise Energy Metals: Friedland's Scandium Bet Gets Its US Backing Formalized

Robert Friedland's two-decade push to build the world's first primary scandium mine has reached a new milestone with Sunrise Energy Metals confirming details of a landmark US government financing package for its Syerston project in New South Wales. After more than two decades, billionaire Robert Friedland's plans of developing a scandium mine in New South Wales look to be finally coming to fruition, with Sunrise Energy Metals securing a $400-million conditional loan commitment from the U.S. Department of Defense for the Syerston scandium project.

The strategic rationale is straightforward: scandium remains one of the most China-dependent critical minerals on Earth. Currently, scandium is obtained only as a byproduct of other industrial or resource extraction processes, with no primary mine-source supply existing globally, and foreign competitors account for roughly 80% of global mining production and nearly all scandium processing. Sunrise is positioning Syerston to change that. The project hosts one of the largest and highest-grade mineable scandium deposits within a Western jurisdiction, the company said.

CEO Sam Riggall, who has worked alongside Friedland on major copper projects, put the scale of the opportunity in perspective, telling The Northern Miner: "Robert Friedland and I have done some of the largest copper projects in the world, like Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia and the Ivanhoe developments in the Congo... This is a tiny project," but added that "what's taken China 20 years to build can be done in one mine in central New South Wales." The company is also weighing a US listing, and David A. Lorch of the Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital called the arrangement "a significant step in establishing supply chain resiliency for an increasingly critical mineral," adding that "this nearly $1 billion deal, bringing together public and private capital, would help address foreign dependencies in scandium supply."

Niron Magnetics: $150 Million Loan Advances Rare-Earth-Free Magnets in Minnesota

Niron Magnetics disclosed Tuesday that it has landed a $150 million loan from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community to push forward construction of its magnet plant in Sartell, Minnesota — a project built around magnets that need no rare earth elements at all. Niron Magnetics announced Tuesday it has received a $150 million loan from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) to advance construction of its magnet manufacturing plant in Sartell, Minnesota.

The financing builds on an already-announced federal commitment. This month, Niron received a conditional commitment from the Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital for a direct loan of up to $150 million with a 20-year term to support construction and equipment for the Sartell plant, which will serve as Niron Magnetics' first full-scale magnet manufacturing plant and is expected to begin production in 2027. The tribal community has been involved since the technology's earliest days: SMSC became one of Niron's earliest investors in 2016 to advance iron nitride from university research towards a scalable manufacturing pathway, and later participated in Niron's 2023 financing syndicate.

The commercial stakes are considerable. According to earlier reporting, the 287,000-square-foot Sartell plant would produce up to 1,500 tons of magnets a year, with Niron already selecting a site for a second U.S. plant capable of producing 10,000 tons per year, which is expected to break ground in 2028. Iron nitride magnets skip rare earths entirely, drawing instead on a process that combines iron and nitrogen into iron nitride, which the state has an abundance of, with the magnetic powder then formed into different shapes and sizes.

Hertha Metals: Houston Startup Clears Purity Bar for US Magnet Supply Chain

Hertha Metals announced Tuesday it has hit a key technical threshold in the race to build a domestic rare-earth magnet supply chain, achieving magnet-grade purity in its high-purity iron output. Hertha Metals said Tuesday it has achieved iron production at 99.95% (3N5) purity, meeting the specifications required by top rare earth magnet manufacturers at its demonstration-scale steelmaking facility in Conroe, Texas.

The milestone addresses an overlooked link in the magnet supply chain. High-purity iron makes up the bulk of neodymium-iron-boron magnets used across defense and clean-energy applications, and high-purity iron makes up roughly 70 percent by weight of neodymium magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense systems. Yet, as CEO Laureen Meroueh explained, "high-purity iron is one of the least visible materials behind the magnets that power everything from electric vehicles to defense systems, and today almost none of it is made in America... We've now demonstrated that we can produce magnet-grade iron domestically, creating a new pathway to build a domestic supply chain."

The timing is deliberate. The news comes as defense manufacturers face a January 1, 2027 deadline to reduce reliance on Chinese-origin magnets and critical materials, while US industry races to qualify domestic alternatives. Hertha's next step is scaling up: the upcoming Chalyx facility will be able to scale initial commercial capacity to approximately 9,000–10,000 metric tons per year, with long-term goals targeting 500,000 tons annually.

Glencore: South Korea Locks In Copper Supply With $1 Billion Loan

In a sign of how aggressively industrial economies are moving to lock down copper access, South Korea's state export bank has agreed to lend $1 billion to Glencore in exchange for guaranteed copper supply. South Korea's export credit agency will lend $1 billion to Glencore in exchange for copper supplies to Korean companies, securing access to a metal increasingly vital to artificial intelligence and power infrastructure.

The deal formalizes financing-for-supply arrangements that are becoming more common as AI-driven demand strains copper markets. The Export-Import Bank of Korea said Monday it would provide $1 billion in financing to Swiss commodities giant Glencore in return for a stable supply of copper to Korean companies. An Eximbank official described the move in stark terms, calling it "preemptive" from an economic-security perspective. Korea's dependence on imported copper is a key driver: South Korea is reliant on imports of the industrial material, which is used in power grids, data centres and for renewable energy equipment, and the AI data boom and rising electricity demand has boosted demand for copper, which has jumped around 15% this year and is near a record high.

Captura and ElectraLith: Partnership Targets Cleaner, Cheaper Battery-Grade Lithium

Captura and ElectraLith announced a technology partnership Tuesday aimed at slashing the cost and energy intensity of producing battery-grade lithium, with two pilot plants already in motion. Two pilot plants will pair the companies' technologies to produce battery-grade lithium with lower energy use and costs, integrating Captura's bipolar membrane electrodialysis stacks with ElectraLith's direct lithium extraction and refining technology, known as DLE-R.

ElectraLith CEO Charlie McGill framed the tie-up around a shared mission, saying "ElectraLith's partnership with Captura combines two industry pioneers taking on climate change, one of the greatest challenges of our generation." The companies are betting on surging domestic lithium demand: with increased lithium demand in the US for electrification of transportation, energy storage and grid infrastructure, the partnership comes with the goal of accelerating the development of lower-impact and lower-cost technologies to support the energy transition. Under the arrangement, ElectraLith will obtain BMED stacks from Captura over an initial five-year period.

What It Means

Today's press releases tell a consistent story: capital — public and private — is racing to de-risk critical mineral and material supply chains outside of China, whether that's scandium in New South Wales, iron nitride magnets in Minnesota, high-purity iron in Texas, or next-generation lithium extraction technology aimed at the US market. Government financing vehicles, from the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital to South Korea's Eximbank, are increasingly acting as direct counterparties in mining and materials deals rather than passive policymakers, tying loans explicitly to supply guarantees.

Meanwhile, Empire Metals' titanium blowout is a reminder that old-economy critical minerals — not just battery metals — can still deliver headline-grabbing exploration results. Broader market context reinforces the mood: gold trades around $4,333/oz and silver near $62.92/oz, both pulling back on the day even as mining equities have rallied sharply this month, according to market data, while copper miners (COPX) and uranium (URA) both traded lower Tuesday despite the structural demand story building underneath names like Glencore and NexGen. With energy stocks (XLE) up 1.8% and now reading overbought at an RSI of 73.9 per Polygon data, investors appear to be rotating aggressively into resource names on the belief that the critical minerals buildout — magnets, copper, titanium, scandium — has real staying power.

This roundup covers press releases published on August 19, 2026. Company announcements are sourced from mining industry wire services. For corrections or updates, contact contact@stakeandpaper.com.