Mining Press Roundup: Pentagon's $450M Tungsten Bet Lands Blue Moon's Nevada Restart as Osisko Greenlights $841M BC Gold Mine

Washington's push to onshore critical mineral supply chains dominated Monday's news flow, with the U.S. Department of War committing $450 million to rebuild America's tungsten pipeline — a deal that pulls previously obscure junior Blue Moon Metals into the center of U.S. defense policy. The announcement lands alongside a formal construction decision at Osisko Gold Group's Cariboo project in British Columbia and a fresh government equity stake in Trilogy Metals' Alaska copper-zinc district, underscoring how state capital — not just commodity prices — is now driving project timelines across North American mining.

Blue Moon Metals & The Elmet Group: Pentagon Bankrolls a Tungsten Supply Chain

The U.S. Department of War is putting $450 million into The Elmet Group, with $150 million earmarked for Blue Moon Metals' Springer tungsten complex in Nevada as Washington pushes to rebuild a domestic supply chain for the strategic metal. Under the binding agreement, Blue Moon would receive a $50-million tungsten concentrate prepayment facility and a $25-million equity investment, while Elmet would put another $75 million into a joint venture to restart Springer's ammonium paratungstate, or APT, plant, with Elmet and EQ setting aside a further $25 million if needed.

The Pentagon frames this as more than a mine restart. According to the government, the investment is intended to establish North America's only independent APT facility, addressing what it calls one of the largest bottlenecks in the domestic tungsten supply chain. Timelines are notably tight for a critical-minerals project: the Springer mine and mill are expected to restart production by the end of 2027, and the APT facility will begin operations by mid-2028.

Elmet isn't stopping at Nevada. The company is planning to spend more than $165 million modernizing and expanding facilities in Maine, Michigan and Ohio in addition to its Springer investment, while building a network of tungsten supply arrangements involving EQ's Mt Carbine mine in Australia and Barruecopardo mine in Spain. Separately, Elmet Technologies has secured an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract from the Defense Logistics Agency worth as much as $2 billion, carrying a guaranteed funded commitment of $150 million covering tungsten ore, concentrates and sodium tungstate for the National Defense Stockpile. Tungsten, used in everything from armor-piercing rounds to cutting tools, has been a glaring gap in the West's critical minerals defenses given China's dominance of global supply — making this one of the more consequential single-metal interventions of the year.

Osisko Gold Group: Cariboo Gets the Green Light

Chairman and CEO Sean Roosen's Osisko Gold Group is moving from development to construction. Canadian developer Osisko Gold Group is going ahead with construction of the $841 million Cariboo underground mine in central British Columbia, targeting a first gold pour in early 2029. The project already carries meaningful scale: Cariboo hosts about 17.4 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 2.88 grams gold for contained metal of 1.61 million oz. gold, according to a 2025 resource, plus 18.8 million inferred tonnes grading 3.09 grams gold for contained metal of 1.86 million oz. gold.

The company disclosed that Cariboo, which was about 22% complete as of the end of July, carries about $990 million in future capital obligations, with commercial production expected in the second half of 2029, following a 30-month construction period. Osisko lined up financing to match, including a US$30 million strategic private placement from an affiliate of Trafigura, concentrate and doré off-take from Trafigura, and potential prepayment facility of up to US$120 million.

Even with a stretched timeline versus the original feasibility study, gold's run higher has sweetened the math. At spot prices, based on an estimated remaining go-forward capital obligation of C$990 million and spot gold prices of US$4,350/oz, the Project demonstrates robust economics with after-tax NPV5% of C$3.2 billion, after-tax IRR of 42.7%, and average annual free cash flow of C$642 million in the first 5 years. RBC's mining analyst Harrison Reynolds called the decision a milestone, noting it "formally transitions Cariboo from development to active construction, representing a key de-risking milestone."

ONGold Resources: Monument Bay Comes Back to Life

Nearly a decade after its last technical study, Manitoba's Monument Bay gold project has a current resource again. ONGold Resources has put Manitoba's long-dormant Monument Bay gold project back on a current-resource footing after nearly a decade, outlining 2 million measured and indicated contained ounces, with the project hosting 74.4 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.84 gram gold per tonne for 2 million oz., while inferred resources hold 24.5 million tonnes at 0.62 gram gold for 491,000 oz.

CEO Kyle Stanfield called the update a pivotal step, saying "the completion of a mineral resource estimate prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 for the Monument Bay gold deposit is a very important milestone for ONGold... the 2026 MRE establishes a substantial open-pit-constrained gold resource." Notably, the new model shows more tonnes at lower grades than the 2017 historical estimate — a comparison with a historical resource prepared in 2017 for past owner Yamana shows the current model carries substantially more tonnes but at lower grades and with fewer contained ounces. The market read that as a mixed signal: shares in ONGold Resources fell 11% on Monday morning in Toronto to 66¢ apiece, valuing the company at about $48.8 million.

There's a secondary story buried in the data too. Re-assaying of historical core has turned up a tungsten association that ONGold plans to chase further, with re-logging and pulp re-analysis through 2025 and 2026 adding some 13,900 tungsten assays to the database, with scheelite turning up in the same quartz veining and stockwork that carries the high-grade gold. Given today's Pentagon tungsten news, that optionality may prove more strategically relevant than the market currently credits.

Trilogy Metals: Washington Deepens Its Alaska Copper Bet

The U.S. government's appetite for direct equity stakes in critical minerals juniors continues. The U.S. government has closed a $35.6-million investment giving it about 10% of Trilogy Metals, deepening Washington's direct involvement in developing the company's copper-rich projects in northwest Alaska. Structurally, the Department of Defense paid about $17.8 million directly to Trilogy and another $17.8 million to South32 for shares it already held, with both companies committing the proceeds to Ambler Metals, their 50-50 joint venture advancing the Upper Kobuk mineral projects.

The scale of what's ultimately at stake is considerable. Trilogy's technical report on the Upper Kobuk projects outlines a 13-year mine life averaging annual payable production of 149 million lb. copper and 173 million lb. zinc, with the proposed operation also producing 26 million lb. lead, 32,538 oz. gold and 2.8 million oz. silver a year. The government is also greasing the permitting wheels: Washington is backing infrastructure and permitting initiatives that could help unlock the remote Ambler mining district, and Arctic was added in May to the government's FAST-41 program, designed to improve coordination among federal agencies and accelerate permitting for major infrastructure and critical minerals projects.

Saudi Arabia: A Uranium and Rare Earth Surprise in Madinah

Away from North America, Riyadh delivered a geopolitically loaded announcement. Saudi Arabia has discovered 110 million tonnes of uranium-concentrated ore in the Madinah region, with the discovery at the Jabal Sayid project containing high concentrations of heavy rare earth elements alongside promising uranium levels. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman unveiled the find at the IAEA's general conference in Vienna, calling it "among the most significant rare earth mineral resource sites currently under development globally."

The timing is not incidental. A US-Saudi civilian nuclear deal, signed in July, lays the foundation for a "decades-long, multibillion-dollar partnership" including potential uranium enrichment facilities, and Saudi mining company Ma'aden partnered with US-based MP Materials to develop rare earth mineral processing and uranium production capabilities. Analysts caution the headline tonnage overstates near-term impact — as one outlet noted, the reported 110 million tons should not be interpreted as 110 million tons of uranium, since the quantity of recoverable uranium would depend on the concentration of uranium in the material, the characteristics of the deposit, and the feasibility of extraction. Even so, the announcement signals Riyadh's ambition to pair its nuclear buildout with a homegrown fuel source rather than relying entirely on imports.

Canada: Carney Puts Mining at the Center of a $1 Trillion Pitch

Canada's government used this week's inaugural Toronto investment summit to make mining the face of its capital-raising campaign. Prime Minister Mark Carney is putting mining at the centre of Canada's bid for C$1 trillion in global investment, with more than a third of the 167 projects being pitched at the summit involving minerals and mining. Per one tally, mining stands as the largest featured sector with 63 projects, putting gold, copper, lithium and other critical minerals at the core of the country's capital-raising campaign.

The pitch comes against a backdrop of trade friction. The mining-heavy pitch comes as escalating trade tensions with the US increase pressure on Canada to diversify its economic relationships and find new markets for its resources. Investors showing up bring serious firepower — the Wall Street Journal reported investors attending the gathering oversee more than C$100 trillion in assets, giving Canadian developers access to pools of capital far larger than the domestic mining market can provide. But access isn't the same as commitment: access does not guarantee financing, and mining's 75% surge in equity raising this year suggests capital is already available, though investors remain selective over project economics, permitting, infrastructure and construction risk.

What It Means

Today's news reinforces a pattern that's been building through 2026: governments are no longer content to subsidize critical minerals from the sidelines — they're taking equity, prepaying offtake, and co-owning joint ventures outright. The Pentagon's tungsten intervention and its Trilogy Metals stake both follow the same playbook as earlier moves into rare earths and lithium, treating strategic metals as a national-security line item rather than a purely commercial bet. Meanwhile, gold's persistent strength — with spot prices cited near $4,350/oz in Osisko's own disclosures — is doing quiet work of its own, transforming project economics at Cariboo and giving juniors like ONGold cover to push forward even when new resource models come in below historical estimates.

Geographically, the map is widening. Alaska, Nevada, British Columbia and Manitoba are all seeing capital deployed in the same week that Saudi Arabia stakes a claim to a domestic uranium and rare earths future, and Canada tries to convert investor curiosity at its Toronto summit into bankable mine financing. According to market data, gold traded at $4,333/oz and silver at $63.90/oz Monday, while the Uranium ETF URA fell 3.3% day-over-day — a reminder that even as government dollars flood into critical minerals infrastructure, the underlying commodity markets remain volatile enough to keep every one of these bets a genuine wager on execution.

This roundup covers press releases published on September 14, 2026. Company announcements are sourced from mining industry wire services. For corrections or updates, contact contact@stakeandpaper.com.