Four vital IMARC 2026 conversations: Part 1

IMARC 2026 will bring mining, government, finance and industry leaders from around the world to discuss major issues and trends shaping the future of minerals extraction, processing and downstream use. Here we look at the first of four topics that could define this year’s event.

Mine to mission

In March this year US assistant secretary of war for industrial base policy Mike Cadenazzi said a US$27 million investment in domestic extraction, processing and refinement of antimony would help address a key risk in “one of our most critical munitions and materials supply chains”.

“For too long, DOW [US Department of War] has depended on overseas sources for its critical mineral production,” Cadenazzi said.

Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), wrote at the time that history showed a clear and recurring pattern of US “critical minerals vulnerability”, marked by crisis-driven mobilisation of will and capital “followed by prolonged retrenchment”.

“Across wars, technological revolutions and geopolitical shifts the United States repeatedly demonstrated that mineral security is not guaranteed by geology, markets or alliances alone, but by sustained institutional capacity, industrial coordination and strategic foresight,” she said.

“The central lesson of a century of experience is [that] critical minerals security must be treated as a permanent pillar of national strategy, requiring continuous stewardship rather than episodic intervention.

“Rebuilding resilience today will require not only new investments and policies, but the deliberate reconstruction of capabilities, institutions and habits that history shows are far easier to lose than to restore.”

Baskaran told Bloomberg in a recent interview “we still have a very long ramp to self-sufficiency” in rare earth element and other strategic mineral and metal supply.

“When you look at the rare earths supply chain alone, over the course of the last year you have seen substantial US support be announced with the Japanese, the Australians, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Brazil ... And this is really a sign that the US does not intend to go at it alone and that partnership is going to be really crucial if we are going to reach that mine-to-the-manufactured-goods supply chain in any reasonable time frame.

“There is not a country on Earth, maybe with the exception of China, that has the geological resources, the financial capital and the technical know-how to do it alone.”

The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework launched in May this year by Indo-Pacific partners the US, Japan, India and Australia aimed to “to accelerate the development of diversified and fair critical mineral markets and support the supply of critical minerals that are crucial to our region's economic growth and security”.

Dr John Coyne, national security programs director at the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the framework was noteworthy because it acknowledged what he called a fundamental shift in the global strategic environment.

“Economic security and national security increasingly depend on access to critical minerals and the industrial systems that transform them into defence capabilities, advanced technologies, energy infrastructure and manufacturing outputs,” he said.

“The commitment to mobilise up to US$20 billion in public and private investment demonstrates that Quad governments understand the scale of the challenge facing the Indo-Pacific.

“Still, it [the framework] reflects a broader policy trend of viewing critical minerals primarily through the lens of supply. Supply is important, but geology has never been the principal strategic vulnerability facing the Quad. Australia already produces significant amounts of critical minerals and additional projects continue to emerge across partner nations.

“Deposits are not scarce. Processing capacity, market influence and industrial coordination are.”

Coyne says critical minerals are central to strategic competition because they underpin military capability, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence infrastructure, telecommunications systems and energy technologies.

“Control over processing, refining, manufacturing and market access creates leverage during periods of economic coercion, political tension and strategic competition.

“Any serious effort to reduce vulnerability must therefore focus on the broader industrial system rather than on extraction alone.

“A mine without processing capacity provides limited strategic value. Processing facilities without reliable demand struggle to attract investment. Strategic reserves without replenishment mechanisms eventually become finite buffers. Government funding without coordination often yields activity without resilience.”

Coyne says a Quad Strategic Offtake Facility and a Quad Strategic Minerals Reserve are two mechanisms that must be next on policy maps. A “distributed processing and refining network” is also crucial.

“The Quad should pursue a deliberate strategy that distributes processing and downstream industrial functions across partner nations,” he says. “Australia’s resource base, Japan’s industrial expertise, India’s manufacturing ambitions and the US’s strategic capital create natural advantages that should be integrated into a collective system rather than pursued through isolated national strategies.

“Without change, the risk is that Quad partners build several stockpiles and fund dozens of projects but fail to create the architecture required to connect them.”

Resource Capital Funds chief economist and commodity strategist Rob Gray observed in RCF’s latest market commentary that ongoing conflicts in the Persian Gulf and Ukraine continued to draw on above-ground stocks of bulk, base and critical metal and mineral supply.

“Wars are inflationary and the rebuilds even more so, as damaged infrastructure is rebuilt, defence spending continues and material is restocked,” he said.

“This is all happening while the world’s richest companies deploy unprecedented capital into new technological hardware, in an all-out economic arms race to command the artificial intelligence capabilities and revenues of the future.

“Growing, enhancing and preserving natural resource continuity, from vital minerals through to cutting edge technology, is exactly why corporates, governments and strategists are spending so much time in critical mineral dialogues and partnerships around the world.”