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The $12 Billion Mineral Stockpile Changes Everything. And One C$5 Million Explorer Just Landed in the Middle of It
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- USANewsGroup.com — On ...
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[{"type":"text","content":"The $12 Billion Mineral Stockpile Changes Everything. And One C$5 Million Explorer Just Landed in the Middle of ItIssued on behalf of EagleOne Metals Corporation\nVANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- USANewsGroup.com — On February 2, 2026, the White House launched Project Vault — a $12 billion initiative to build a U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve covering all 60 minerals on the USGS Critical Minerals List. Two days later, Secretary of State Rubio convened the 2026 Critical Minerals Ministerial with 54 countries, confirming more than $30 billion in U.S. government support for secure supply chains in just the prior six months. This isn’t a subsidy announcement. It’s an allocation event. And the commodities at the centre of it — uranium, rare earths, copper, cobalt — are the same commodities that a C$5 million Canadian explorer just acquired exposure to for the price of a mid-range pickup truck. The supply fundamentals are stark. The IEA projects a 30% copper shortfall by 2035. Rare earth supplies outside China cover less than 40% of projected demand. Uranium is approaching $92 per pound as reactor demand accelerates alongside AI-driven power infrastructure. The DOE has committed $2.7 billion to expand domestic enrichment capacity. Every one of these commodities appears on the U.S. Critical Minerals List. The companies already building infrastructure around this thesis are being repriced accordingly. Energy Fuels (TSX: EFR) (NYSE: UUUU), the largest U.S. uranium producer by licensed capacity, is simultaneously building what may become the first commercial-scale Western rare earth separation operation at its White Mesa Mill in Utah. The company achieved 99.9% purity dysprosium oxide in late 2025 and plans commercial heavy REE production by Q4 2026. Its January 2026 acquisition of Australian Strategic Materials created a vertically integrated Western rare earth platform, and shares surged over 53% in January alone. Uranium Energy (NYSE: UEC) is scaling low-cost in-situ recovery production across Texas, Wyoming, and the Southwest, extracting approximately 700,000 pounds in 2025 and targeting 2 million pounds annually. Its acquisition of Rio Tinto’s Sweetwater mill expanded licensed capacity to 12.1 million pounds per year — making it the larges...