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The Case for a Five Eyes Critical Minerals Alliance Focusing on Greenland

Dwayne Ryan Menezes

In August 2019, when it surfaced that the incumbent president of the United States had sought to purchase Greenland from Denmark, the world, not surprisingly, greeted the story with derision and incredulity. The idea that one country—no matter how large or powerful—could simply make an offer to purchase another country—no matter how unfamiliar or remote—seemed anachronistic at best, prompting the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, to dismiss the proposal as “absurd” and assert, “Greenland is not Danish. Greenland is Greenlandic.” The very notion that Greenland was a mere appendage of Denmark that the latter could sell was highly problematic, leading Greenland’s premier, Kim Kielsen, to state, “Greenland is not for sale.”

Yet, by causing the world to sit up and take notice of this large Arctic island, Donald Trump may have unwittingly lifted the veil on Greenland’s—and indeed the Arctic’s—geostrategic importance to the United States and its allies more widely than ever before. The renewed emphasis on Greenland in US foreign, defence, and security policy is much more explicable when viewed against the backdrop of Greenland’s vast resource potential and increasing US-China great power competition. The relative abundance of several critical minerals, including rare earth elements, in Greenland offers the United States and its allies the opportunity to reduce their dependence on China for resources essential to their defence and security, renewable energy, and high-tech sector needs and thus enhance their resource security and strategic competitiveness.

What makes the case of Greenland particularly interesting is that, despite the media hullaballoo about China’s growing footprint in the Arctic, the three countries most prolific in Greenland’s mining sector are the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, three of the United States’ closest allies and, along with New Zealand, its partners within the Five Eyes (FVEY) alliance. By casting a spotlight on this oft-overlooked reality, this chapter prompts the question: Would greater and more concerted FVEY co-operation in, and with, Greenland be a more appropriate and effective strategy to address some of the more legitimate concerns and achieve some of the more reasonable objectives that may have fuelled the proposed US acquisition of Greenland, especially in relation to enhancing regional security, and building more diverse and resilient supply chains of critical minerals?

By focusing on the British, Australian, and Canadian commercial presence in Greenland instead of the more familiar US military presence there, this chapter will explore why Greenland should matter just as much to the FVEY alliance as a whole as it does to the United States. It will make the case for why concerted FVEY co-operation in and with Greenland would be invaluable to the resource security, defence, industrial, and climate ambitions of the five countries, as well as those of their European allies.

Look North: Greenland’s Vast Resource Potential

Changing Arctic sea ice conditions have opened up the possibility of increased navigation along the Northern Sea Route, dramatically reducing the time it takes to ship goods between Asia, Europe, and North America, while presenting new opportunities for Greenland’s waterways and port infrastructure. Likewise, the growing practicality and popularity of using polar air routes that result in substantial time and fuel savings on flights between North America, Europe, and Asia have opened up new opportunities for Greenland’s airways and airport infrastructure. What makes Greenland so strategic, though, is not just where it sits geographically, but also what it holds resource-wise. In 2008, the US Geological Survey estimated that the three major basins off the coast of Greenland could yield up to the equivalent of fifty-two billion barrels of oil. Furthermore, a 2015 study found that Greenland could produce enough hydro power to meet its own needs and export the surplus to Nunavut, or Newfoundland and Labrador, and perhaps even further through an undersea cable (Pehora 2016). Greenland’s fish-rich waters also make it one of the world’s largest exporters of cold-water prawns, cod, haddock, halibut, and snow crab. Mineral-rich Greenland, moreover, holds large reserves of copper, zinc, lead, iron ore, nickel, titanium, cobalt, gold, precious gemstones, platinum-group metals, rare earth elements, and other minerals.

Growing Chinese Interest in Greenland

Greenland’s—as also the wider Arctic’s—vast resource potential has not escaped China’s attention. In 2018, China outlined its ambitions to build a Polar Silk Road (as an extension of its Belt and Road Initiative) by developing Arctic shipping routes; vessels belonging to China’s COSCO Shipping have plied the Northern Sea Route since 2013. China, furthermore, has actively pursued investment opportunities in Greenland’s airport, port, and research infrastructure, as well as mining and energy sectors. In 2016, it was reported that Chinese mining company General Nice sought to take over the abandoned naval base at Grønnedal, but Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen personally intervened to prevent it from doing so (Breum 2016). More recently, a Chinese construction firm, China Communications Construction Company, bid for Greenland’s airport projects but withdrew after Denmark stepped in to finance the projects, reportedly in the face of mounting US concern over China’s role with respect to Greenland’s future air facilities (Shi and Lantaigne 2019).

When it comes to mining, Chinese firms, such as Shenghe Resources Holding Company Ltd., General Nice Development, China Non-Ferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering and Construction Company Ltd., and China National Nuclear Corporation, have long had interests in Greenland, much to the consternation of the United States. Greenland sits on some of the world’s largest deposits of rare earth elements, which are critically important to the United States, but for which the US is still heavily dependent on China, a dependence that China could weaponize in the US-China trade war. Although Greenland’s new government, elected in April 2021, decided to halt one project and withdraw the licence from another, both of which had Chinese interests, the new government went ahead with existing plans to open a new representation in Beijing in November 2021, so the implications of recent developments on China’s economic footprint in Greenland has yet to be seen. In the energy sector, two Chinese oil majors—China National Petroleum Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation—had expressed interest in bidding for Greenland’s onshore oil and gas blocks in 2021. However, in July 2021, Greenland’s new government announced it would suspend all new oil and gas exploration to focus instead on combatting climate change, so again it will be of interest to see what opportunities—if any—China might wish to court next. China also serves as one of the largest markets for Greenland’s fish exports. A 2017 study noted that Greenland attracted the highest levels of Chinese foreign direct investment as a percentage of GDP of all Arctic countries (Rosen and Thuringer 2017).

The Forgotten Giants: The British, Australian, and Canadian Economic Footprint in Greenland

While China undoubtedly has demonstrated significant interest in Greenland, the preoccupation with China has resulted in the United States overlooking the importance of other players, including its closest allies, in the region. Despite the media hullabaloo about China, it is the United Kingdom that, with the exception of Denmark, still commands the greatest economic footprint in Greenland, followed by Canada and Australia. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, furthermore, have a long and rich history of resource exploration and development in Greenland. Geologists, prospectors, and explorationists from the United Kingdom and the wider English-speaking world have been instrumental in surveying and mapping the geology, as well as energy and mineral resources, of Greenland for the better part of two centuries. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have remained relevant to Greenland over recent decades as home to some of the world’s leading clusters of energy and mining expertise, the foremost centres of global energy and mining finance, and the biggest and most visible energy and mining companies.

In the case of the United Kingdom, energy firms such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Cairn Energy, have been a key feature of Greenland’s oil and gas exploration landscape. While BP and Shell were part of a consortium of companies that was granted a prospecting licence under the Kalaallit Nunaat Marine Seismic project as early as 1989, Cairn Energy had emerged as the biggest explorer in Greenland by 2011, though its US$1.2 billion campaign to drill eight wells proved unsuccessful. The United Kingdom’s largest mining firms as well, Glencore, BHP, Rio Tinto, and Anglo American, have been involved in Greenland at various points. For instance, Rio Tinto was already prospecting in Kangerluarsuk, Isua, and Washington Land in the 1990s, and another UK-based firm, London Mining, acquired its Isua iron ore project from Rio Tinto in 2005. In 2013, London Mining was awarded a thirty-year licence to develop the Isua project, described then as “the largest commercial project to date in Greenland,” though financial problems led to the transfer of its Greenlandic subsidiary to the Chinese company General Nice Development (BBC News 2013). Likewise, when BHP Billiton took over Canadian diamond producer Dia Met Minerals Ltd. in 2001, it acquired a majority interest in a joint venture engaged in diamond exploration in western Greenland (Northern Miner 2001). Incidentally, BHP and Rio Tinto are both Anglo-Australian joint ventures, while Glencore is an Anglo-Swiss company, and Anglo American has strong ties to both the United Kingdom and South Africa.

Although no mineral resources were mined in Greenland for a few years since the closure of its southern gold mine in 2013, the mining sector has grown steadily since then, and as of April 2021, Greenland had two active mines:

• In 2017, LNS Greenland, the sister company of Greenland Ruby and both part of the Norwegian family-owned LNS Group, commenced the production of rubies—positioned as the world’s only conflict-free rubies—at its Aappaluttoq mine.
• In 2019, the TSXV-listed Canadian firm Hudson Resources started production at its White Mountain anorthosite mine, which it reports is the largest anorthosite occurrence, surpassed only by the moon.

As of February 2021, there were forty-one companies listed as holding mineral exploitation, exploration, and prospecting licences in Greenland. As we see in table 4.1 below, at least twenty-seven of these firms were largely or entirely British, Canadian, and Australian:

• United Kingdom: 16 firms were headquartered in, listed in, or substantially connected to the United Kingdom, even if they operated in Greenland through local subsidiaries.
• Canada: 7 firms were headquartered in, listed in, or substantially connected to Canada, even if they operated in Greenland through local subsidiaries.
• Australia: 6 firms were headquartered in, listed in, or substantially connected to Australia, even if they operated in Greenland through local subsidiaries.
• Of the firms mentioned above, 2 were connected either to both the United Kingdom and Canada or both the United Kingdom and Australia, so they have been counted only once in the total number of British, Canadian, and Australian mining firms operating in Greenland, bringing the total number to 27 rather than 29.
• This number does not include the 6 Danish firms, most of whose majority stake was held by a firm in the British Virgin Islands.

There have been several significant developments since spring 2021. In 2021, the ASX-listed, Perth-headquartered firm Eclipse Metals acquired full ownership of the Ivittuut project in southwestern Greenland, which is said to be “the world’s largest historical cryolite mine with rare earth potential” (Eclipse Metals 2021) and potentially “the world’s largest and only known source of naturally occurring cryolite” (Birney 2021). In August 2021, the Berkeley, California–based American firm KoBold Metals, backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, signed a joint venture (JV) agreement with the British mining firm Bluejay Mining, which would give it a 51 per cent stake in the Disko-Nuussuaq project in Greenland. In October 2021, shares in ASX/LSE/WSE-listed, London-, Perth-, Warsaw- and Karbonia-based Prairie Mining Ltd. (renamed since as GreenX Metals) rose after the firm entered into an earn-in agreement with Greenfields Exploration Ltd. that would see it acquire up to an 80 per cent stake in the Arctic Rift copper project in northeastern Greenland (Llinares Taboada 2021).

Table 4.1. British, Canadian, and Australian Licensees in the Mining Sector in Greenland (February 2021)

* Address of the company, as per Naalakkersuisut/Government of Greenland (2021).

Over the same period, a new coalition government was elected in Greenland in April 2021, which, while supportive of mining in Greenland in general, has been strongly opposed to radioactive material extraction, raising questions about the future of ASX-listed Greenland Minerals’s Kvanefjeld rare earths and uranium project, as well as uranium extraction in general. In May 2021, the French uranium miner Orano announced its decision to suspend exploration at its two sites in southern Greenland. In November 2021, the Government of Greenland passed legislation banning not only uranium mining but also the mining of resources with a uranium content above 100 parts per million (ppm) (Schøler 2021). Although the legislation will apply to licences issued only after 2 December 2021, and Greenland Minerals received its exploration licence before this date, the government has stated that the company cannot be granted the exploitation licence for which it has applied as this would constitute a new and separate licence (Newell 2021). In November 2021, Greenland also withdrew the Isua iron ore project licence of the Hong Kong–based Chinese mining firm General Nice Development on grounds of inactivity and failure to make guarantee payments (Mining Technology 2021).

Consequently, since February 2021, there have been new players from the FVEY countries entering the space, even if the future of one of the older Australian players remains uncertain. However, given the partial Chinese ownership of this firm and the withdrawal of the licence from another Chinese firm, recent developments have taken a much greater toll on China’s economic influence in Greenland. As seen in the figures from February 2021 and the companies entering Greenland since, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, moreover, are not just where many of the mining companies scoping out opportunities in Greenland originate, but are often where they choose to fundraise or seek expertise. Listing on exchanges in the three countries, as well as in the United States, has proven especially popular. Furthermore, the Government of Greenland regularly hosts Greenland Day events in both Canada and Australia—at, or following, mining conferences, such as the PDAC (Prospective and Developments Association of Canada) Convention in Toronto and the Australian Nickel Conference in Perth—to promote Greenland’s resource potential and attract investment.

Given the extent to which the ownership, funding, and project activities of mining firms—especially British, Canadian, and Australian, but also American, Irish, and South African—may be intertwined through ownership structures, exchange listings, and pathways of co-operation, one might ask whether these national distinctions are or remain clear-cut in practice. What complicates matters is that it is often the case that a firm registered or headquartered in one country may choose to list in another country or may be acquired by a firm listed in another country. As is apparent, many of the firms, or their parent companies, may also hold multiple listings—on exchanges such as the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and its Alternative Investment Market (AIM), the Toronto Stock Exchange Venture Exchange (TSXV), the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE), and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)—and trade in over-the-counter markets, such as OTCQB and OTCQX (part of OTC Markets Group), allowing them to access wider and more diverse pools of international capital.

Furthermore, as the firms currently producing in Greenland expand, and those prospecting or exploring eventually commence production, Greenland—owing to its resource potential and relative geographical proximity—is well placed to become one of North America’s and Europe’s leading import sources for a number of metals and minerals. Many of these firms may rely on British, Canadian, Australian, and American expertise and mining finance, as is already the case, and may also look to use or to develop processing operations in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United States. Such pathways of future co-operation may also make national distinctions less relevant, meaningful, or valuable in comparison with international alliances when it comes to conceiving strategies to build secure, stable, sustainable, reliable, and resilient supply chains of critical minerals.

The following examples reveal some of the ways in which UK companies and exchanges are involved in Greenland’s mining sector, and how connected they are with companies and exchanges beyond, especially in the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa:

• The AIM- and FSE-listed British firm Bluejay Mining is developing three projects in Greenland: the Dundas Ilmenite Project, which is the world’s highest-grade mineral sand ilmenite (the key ore in titanium) project; the Disko-Nuussuaq Project, a magmatic and massive sulphide nickel-copper-platinum-cobalt project believed to host mineralization similar to the world’s largest nickel/copper sulphide mine in Siberia; and the Kangerluarsuk Zinc-Lead-Silver Project. In 2019, it signed an agreement with Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium Canada, a member of the LSE- and ASX-listed Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Group, for further analysis of the ilmenite from the Dundas project. In August 2021, it also entered into a JV with Berkeley-based KoBold Metals, which would see the American firm pay US$15 million in exploration funding for a 51 per cent stake in the Disko-Nuussuaq project.
• The LSE- and JSE-listed British mining giant Anglo American—the world’s largest platinum producer—is one of the largest mining firms and holds licences in Greenland, where it is undertaking polymetallic (copper-nickel-platinum group elements) exploration, as it is in Finland and Canada. Anglo American had also taken over the London-headquartered global diamond giant De Beers Group in 2011, with an associated Cape Town–based South African company—De Beers Marine (Pty) Ltd.—since obtaining an exploration licence for diamond exploration in Greenland.
• Another LSE- and JSE-listed British-Swiss mining giant, Glencore, is a significant shareholder at the ASX-listed Australian firm Ironbark Zinc and an offtaker for its Citronen project. Ironbark Zinc is developing the Citronen Zinc-Lead Project, which represents one of the world’s largest undeveloped zinc-lead deposits with a resource of more than thirteen billion pounds in contained zinc and lead metal.
• In July 2020, the TSXV-listed Canadian firm AEX Gold, which has revived the Nalunaq Gold Project, and which currently holds the largest gold licence portfolio in Greenland, achieved a dual listing on the AIM, the sub-market of the LSE for small and medium-size companies, after raising GB£42.5 million through a placing and direct subscriptions.

This also brings us to what resources the British, Canadian, and Australian firms currently holding licences in Greenland are targeting. As evident in table 4.2 below, there is a substantial focus on base metals (copper, lead, zinc), light metals (such as ilmenite, titanium, and magnesium), precious metals (such as gold, silver, and the platinum-group metals), iron and ferro-alloy metals (such as iron, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, chromium, and niobium), industrial minerals (such as graphite, feldspar, and anorthosite), specialty metals (such as rare earth elements, zirconium, niobium, tantalum, and uranium) and gemstones (rubies, pink sapphires, and diamonds). These are all metals and minerals that the United Kingdom and its partners use and import quite considerably and that are vital to their defence and security, climate and energy policies, business growth, and industrial strategies. When it comes to rare earths in particular, the firms that appear to be of greatest interest—Greenland Minerals, Tanbreez, Hudson Resources, Stallion Resources, Eclipse Metals—are Australian, Canadian, or British, though the first has run into trouble due to the new government’s opposition to, and introduction of, new legislation restricting radioactive material extraction.

Table 4.2. What Resources Are British, Canadian, and Australian Licensees in Greenland Exploring?

Source: Company websites and communication. See also Naalakkersuisut/Government of Greenland (2021).

It should be noted that the United Kingdom’s economic footprint in Greenland extends beyond mining. As of October 2020, while there were at least twelve British companies holding twenty-eight mining licences in Greenland, there were also four UK entities holding licences for oil and gas exploration in Greenland, at least one UK firm exploring water and ice export opportunities from Greenland and, albeit not trade, a substantial UK research community engaged with research projects in Greenland. In addition, the United Kingdom is one of the leading sources of incoming tourists in Greenland, and several UK travel companies—including cruise companies—include Greenland in their itineraries. Furthermore, the United Kingdom is one of the largest markets for Greenland’s fish and fish products and accounts for more than 10 per cent of Greenland’s total exports. There is a substantial value chain that has developed around Greenlandic seafood in the United Kingdom, one that includes UK importers, processors, manufacturers, traders, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and food-service channels (such as fish and chips shops, pubs, and restaurants). Given the United Kingdom’s vast footprint in Greenland, it is as much in the interest of its Five Eyes and European partners, as it is in its own interest, to encourage a pivoting of UK foreign, defence, security, and trade policy toward Greenland and the cultivation of a new UK–Greenland Special Relationship. The same holds true for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, with their economic footprint also extending beyond mining to trade, investment, or co-operation in energy, water, tourism, fisheries, research, and defence and security (Menezes and Nicol 2019).

Rare Earth Elements: Critically Important to the Five Eyes Allies and Europe

The need for rare earths among the Five Eyes and European countries is critical, and Greenland’s strengths are obvious. Rare earths, a group of seventeen elements (yttrium, scandium, and the fifteen lanthanides) are not necessarily rare in their occurrence, but so widely dispersed that they are rarely found in large concentrations. Rare earths are vital to the green energy transition, as well as for defence and security and hi-tech sectors.

Green Energy Transition

Rare earths are the building blocks of the green energy revolution, making their way into electric vehicles, battery storage, solar panels, and wind turbines. An average electric vehicle uses 66.3 kilograms of graphite, 53.2 kilograms of copper, 39.9 kilograms of nickel, 24.5 kilograms of manganese, 13.3 kilograms of cobalt, 8.9 kilograms of lithium, and 0.5 kilograms of rare earths (International Energy Agency 2021). The International Energy Agency estimates that, over the next two decades, the demand for lithium will grow forty times, graphite twenty-five times, and cobalt and nickel twenty times. Rare earth magnet demand is expected to increase fivefold by 2030. The electric vehicle sector alone is set to increase the demand for rare earths from 5,000 tonnes in 2019 to 70,000 tonnes in 2030. If President Biden is to achieve his goal of ensuring that 50 per cent of the cars sold in the United States in 2030 are zero-emission electric vehicles, then the United States will require ten times the amount of rare earths that it currently has (Koetsier 2021).

Likewise, the wider adoption of solar photovoltaic systems would lead to a surge in demand for the copper, cadmium, tellurium, gallium, indium, selenium, silicon, silver, and aluminum that go into solar panels. The adoption of wind turbines would lead to a spike in demand for the neodymium and dysprosium that make their way into permanent magnets used in the generators in the nacelles, and also for the copper, aluminum, steel, concrete, and fibreglass used in the towers and blades. The wind turbine market is projected to result in roughly 30 per cent of the global growth in the use of rare earth magnets (Ritter 2017).

A 2020 study commissioned by the European Commission noted that the demand for rare earths used in permanent magnets could increase 10 times by 2050, while the European Union would require up to 18 times more lithium and 5 times more cobalt in 2030, and around 60 times more lithium and 15 times more cobalt in 2050, for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage (European Commission 2020).

Defence and Security

Rare earths are also the lifeblood of the defence and security sector, being used in guidance and control systems (such as smart bombs, Tomahawk cruise missiles, Joint Direct Attack Munitions, Joint Air-to-Ground fin actuators, and Predator unmanned aircraft); defence electronic warfare (such as jamming devices, electromagnetic railguns, Ni Metal Hydride batteries, area denial systems, and long-range acoustic devices); targeting and weapon systems (laser targeting, air-based lasers, Laser Avengers, SaberShot Photonic Dispensers, and Future Combat Systems vehicles with laser weapons); and electric motors (such as Combat Hybrid Power Systems, integrated starter generators, hub-mounted electric traction drive technology, Zumwalt DDG 1000s, and Joint Strike Fighter electric aircraft). They are also used in communication (satellite communications, sonar transducers, radar technology, enhanced X-ray radiation detection, and Multipurpose Integrated Chemical Agent Alarms) and optical equipment and speakers (such as night-vision goggles) (Grasso 2013, 10–13).

When it comes to the amount of rare earths needed, according to a 2013 US Congressional Research Service report, a single F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter jet needs about 920 pounds (418 kilograms); a DDG-51 Aegis destroyer needs around 5,200 pounds (2,359 kilograms); while a single SSN-774 Virginia-class submarine requires 9,200 pounds (4,180 kilograms). Significant restrictions to the supply of rare earths can thus severely affect British and American defence and aerospace firms, such as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce Holdings, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, and Boeing.

Tech Industry

Rare earths are also industrial gold where the high-tech sector is concerned, used in iPhones and iPods, LED screens, loudspeakers, computer hard drives, camera and telescope lenses, studio lighting and cinema projection, catalytic converters in cars, aircraft engines, aerospace components, vibration motors, lasers, microwave filters, glass polishing, nuclear batteries, superconductors, visors, electrical components, fibre optics, and X-ray and MRI scanning systems (BBC News 2012).

China’s Dominance in Global Rare Earths Supply: Security Implications

Despite the critical importance of rare earths to their defence and security, energy, and technology sectors, the United Kingdom and its Five Eyes and European partners are greatly dependent on China for the supply and processing of rare earths and other critical minerals. China holds around 37 per cent (44 million metric tonnes) of the world’s rare earth reserves, accounts for 58 per cent of the world’s rare earth production, hosts around 95 per cent of the world’s processing of raw ore, and is responsible for 90.5 per cent of the global total output of rare earth permanent magnets (ResearchInChina 2019). Likewise, 80 per cent of the world’s electric vehicle batteries are produced in Japan, South Korea, and China. The control that China exercises across the supply chain is reflected in its status as the world’s largest reserve, producer, consumer, processor, importer, and exporter of rare earths. This gives China the opportunity to wield tremendous power at every stage of the supply chain, making importing countries—whether in North America, Europe, or the Asia-Pacific—beholden to it.

The United States depends on China for 80 per cent of its rare earth supply. The European Union (EU) depends on China for 98 per cent of its rare earth element supply. The EU’s 2020 List of Critical Raw Materials also indicated that China provides 38 per cent of the EU’s supply of baryte; 49 per cent of its supply of bismuth; 93 per cent of its supply of magnesium; 47 per cent of its supply of natural graphite; 66 per cent of its supply of scandium; 45 per cent of its supply of titanium; 69 per cent of its supply of tungsten; and 39 per cent of its supply of vanadium (European Commission 2020, 2–3). One must not forget that Asian rare-earth-producing or -processing countries, such as Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, are also tied at the hip to China, either as exporters or through Chinese equity. Thus, even if the United States and its allies were to boost domestic production of rare earths, all it takes is for one weak link—whether represented by inadequate technical capabilities or project financing—for the entire supply chain to become dependent on China.

China has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to deploy economic levers for geopolitical gain, with rare earths arguably the sharpest weapon in its arsenal. In September 2010, China halted the export of critical rare earth minerals to Japan in retaliation for its detention of the captain of a Chinese fishing trawler near some disputed East China Sea islands, causing the prices of rare earth minerals to soar (Bradsher 2010). In July 2020, China threatened to impose new sanctions on US defence contractor Lockheed Martin, which would cut off its supply of rare earth elements in retaliation for the US approval of an arms deal for Taiwan relating to air defence missiles made by the company (Tang and Philp 2020). Then, there are also the risks of China restricting the use of domestic rare earth production for domestic manufacturing industries, which would disrupt global production in all of the sectors that depend on rare earths (Smyth 2020a), and, conversely, of China defending its monopoly by flooding the global market with rare earths to lower their prices considerably, when necessary, thus drowning out new entrants (Smyth 2020b).

Rare earth elements have also emerged as China’s weapons on standby in the US-China trade war: “Will rare earths become a counter weapon for China to hit back against the pressure the United States has put on for no reason at all?” asked China’s People’s Daily in May 2019. “The answer is no mystery,” it replied unabashedly, adding later, “We advise the US side not to underestimate the Chinese side’s ability to safeguard its development rights and interests. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!” (Wu 2019). By reducing its exports of rare earths, China could seriously disadvantage American, British, Canadian, Australian, and European firms. In November 2020, an analyst at a consultancy backed by the Chinese government disclosed that US weapons makers could be among the first companies targeted by export restrictions imposed by China (Yu and Sevastopulo 2021).

In February 2021, the Financial Times reported that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed draft controls on the production and export of seventeen rare earth minerals in China, with government officials asking industry executives how severely companies in the United States and Europe would be affected if China restricted rare earth exports during a bilateral dispute. Reportedly, Beijing also sought to understand if the United States would have trouble making F-35 jets and how quickly it could secure alternative sources of rare earths and increase its own production capacity. While China’s proposed guidelines would require rare earth producers to follow export-control laws that regulate shipments of materials that “help safeguard state security,” with China’s State Council and Central Military Commission having the final say on whether the list should include rare earths, not everyone is on board. Concern has been raised in some quarters that such export controls are a “double-edged sword” that might motivate China’s rivals to accelerate their own production capacities and undermine China’s dominance of the industry, and Chinese rare earth miners themselves are troubled about the enhanced power that such regulations would give China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to control their output (Yu and Sevastopulo 2021).

Reducing Dependence on China: The Search for Alternative Sources

While rare earths are also mined domestically in the United States, the Mountain Pass mine in California—for decades, the world’s leading source of rare earths, and today the only active rare earth mining and processing facility in the United States—has had a checkered recent history, being moved into care and maintenance in 2015 before being revived in 2018. The 2015 bankruptcy of Molycorp, which owned Mountain Pass prior to MP Materials taking over, had triggered serious questions about the security and stability of the US supply of critical minerals. Although MP Materials, which purchased the mine in 2017, affirms a mission to “restore the full rare earth supply chain to the United States of America” and has received backing from the Pentagon, it has not succeeded in challenging China’s dominance yet (MP Materials 2021a). This US-led consortium, paradoxically, includes China’s Shenghe Resources Holding Company Ltd., which holds a non-voting 9.9 per cent minority interest, while the firm sends more than 50,000 tonnes of its rare earth concentrates to China for final processing and also depends entirely on Chinese customers for its annual revenue (Scheyder 2020). Its offtake agreement with Shenghe Resources commits all its rare earths concentrate to Shenghe until the repayment of the Shenghe Offtake Advance (US$78 million), estimated to be in 2024 (Kozak 2021). Nevertheless, as the only active rare earths mine in the United States and “the largest rare earths producer in the Western Hemisphere,” reportedly producing “approximately 15 percent of global rare earth content,” MP Materials remains strategically important to the United States (MP Materials 2021b). As a case study, it highlights, however, the control that China exercises over the global supply chains of rare earth elements.

The provision of funding by the Pentagon to MP Materials is of interest and signals the importance the US federal government places on securing the country’s critical minerals supply chains by reducing import reliance on China and expanding domestic production and processing capacity in the United States. The United States also has other rare earth elements (REE) projects being developed at Hondo, Texas, by the Australian firm Lynas Corporation in partnership with Texas-based processing company Blue Line Corporation; at Round Top, Hudspeth County, West Texas, by New York–based USA Rare Earth LLC in partnership with Texas Mineral Resources Corporation; at Bear Lodge, Wyoming, by OTCQB-traded Rare Element Resources Ltd.; at Bokan Mountain in southeast Alaska by TSXV-listed, OTCQX-traded Nova Scotian firm Ucore Rare Metals; at Elk Creek, Nebraska, being developed by TSX-listed, OTCQX-traded NioCorp; and more. A Texas-based firm, Urban Mining Company, likewise, is developing a domestic source for NdFeB rare earth permanent magnets.

Moving beyond the United States, Canada is a mining powerhouse, and it is also a key supplier of thirteen of the thirty-five minerals deemed critical by the United States. It is among the world’s leading producers of battery materials, such as cobalt, graphite, and nickel, and hosts some of the largest lithium and rare earth reserves. In 2019, Canada was the world’s largest producer of potash; second-largest producer of niobium and uranium; third-largest producer of diamonds and mined platinum-group metals; fourth-largest titanium and primary aluminum producer; fifth-largest producer of nickel and gold; seventh-largest producer of cobalt and molybdenum; eighth-largest producer of lithium, zinc, iron ore, and refined lead; and tenth-largest producer of graphite.

In June 2019, US president Donald Trump and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau agreed to develop reliable, integrated North American supply chains for critical minerals, with several bilateral Critical Minerals Working Group meetings held since. This was followed by the Geological Survey of Canada joining forces with Geoscience Australia and the US Geological Survey in the trinational Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative, which held its first meeting in Ottawa in December 2019 (USGS 2020). That same month, Canada and the United States also signed an international memorandum of understanding (MoU) confirming Canada’s participation in the US-led Energy Resource Governance Initiative, which includes Australia, Botswana, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Philippines, and Zambia. On 9 January 2020, Canada and the United States announced the finalization of the Canada-US Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals Collaboration, covering various areas of co-operation, including securing critical minerals supply chains for strategic industries and defence, improving sharing of mineral resource information, enhancing private sector engagement, collaborating in multilateral forums, engaging in supply chain modelling, and increasing support for industry (Natural Resources Canada 2020).

In August 2020, the Government of Saskatchewan announced CAD$31 million in funding to create in the province Canada’s first rare earth processing plant, a facility which is to be owned and operated by Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) and become fully operational in late 2022 (Saskatchewan Research Council 2020). In September 2020, Cheetah Resources, a subsidiary of the ASX-listed, Sydney-headquartered Australian firm Vital Metals, signed a binding term sheet with SRC about building and operating a rare earth extraction plant—that produces a mixed rare earth and carbonate product—alongside SRC’s facility, harnessing the complementarity of their technologies (Cameron 2020). In 2021, Vital commenced rare earths production at its Nechalacho project in the Northwest Territories, making it the first rare earth producer in Canada and, after Mountain Pass, the second in North America (Bohlsen 2021). Its plan is to upgrade the ores using an ore-sorting machine before upgrading the intermediary product at the REE plant in Saskatchewan and then shipping it to a Norway-based firm REEtac, with which it has a definitive offtake agreement (Lasley 2021).

Canada also has other players in the REE space, focused on projects, processes, and facilities, including TSXV-listed Geomega Resources, which states that it is building “the world’s first sustainable rare earths recycling facility” and developing its 100 per cent–owned Montviel REE/Niobium project in Quebec; the TSXV-listed, Vancouver-based Canadian firm Search Minerals, which owns 100 per cent of the properties (including Foxtrot and Deep Fox) within the Port Hope Simpson–St. Lewis Critical Rare Earth Elements (CREE) District in southeastern Labrador; the Vancouver-based Canadian firm Medallion Resources, which said it was looking for sites across North America to develop an extraction plant for rare earths; the TSXV- and FSE-listed, OTCQB-traded, Vancouver-headquartered Defense Metals Corporation’s Wicheeda Rare Earth Elements Property, located near Prince George, British Columbia; and the TSX-listed, OTCQB-traded, and Toronto-headquartered Avalon Advanced Materials’ Separation Rapids Lithium Project in Kenora, Ontario, and Nechalacho REE Project at Thor Lake, Northwest Territories. A TSXV-listed, OTCQX-traded Nova Scotian firm Ucore is also developing the Bokan Mountain Heavy Rare Earth Elements Project on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska.

Like Canada, Australia is a global powerhouse when it comes to mining. The resource-rich country is the largest producer of lithium; among the top five producers of antimony, manganese, rare earths, ilmenite, and rutile; and has the world’s largest nickel reserves and second-largest cobalt reserves (Canavan, Birmingham, and Reynolds 2019). The largest rare earths mining and processing company outside China is also Australian: Lynas Corporation, which has two major operations—a mining facility at Mount Weld in Australia and a processing plant at Kuantan in Malaysia. As of September 2019, the Australian government had identified fifteen rare earth and critical mineral projects it intended to promote as part of joint Australia-US efforts to reduce reliance on China for materials crucial to the defence and high-tech sectors. (Smyth 2019).

In February 2018, following US president Donald Trump’s meeting with Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in Washington, DC, the two countries agreed “to work together on strategic minerals exploration, extraction, processing and research, and development of rare earths and high performance metals” (US Embassy and Consulates in Australia 2018). In December 2018, Australian minister for resources and northern Australia Matt Canavan and US secretary of the interior Ryan Zinke signed a letter of intent committing Geoscience Australia and the US Geological Survey to collaborate on critical minerals (Australian Government 2019a). In September 2019, President Trump and Australian counterpart, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, agreed to develop a US-Australia Critical Minerals Action Plan to “improve the security and supply of rare earths and other critical minerals in the United States and Australia; increase US–Australia connectivity throughout the supply chain of critical minerals; and leverage the interest of other like-minded partners to improve the health of the global critical minerals supply chain” (Prime Minister of Australia 2019). The Australian Government also published a report identifying fifteen rare earth and critical minerals projects it aimed to highlight as part of joint Australia-US efforts and that required AU$5.7 billion to develop (Australian Government 2019b).

In October 2019, Austrade released its report Critical Minerals Supply Chain in the United States: Mapping the Landscape for Australian Suppliers to help Australian producers identify end users in the United States and facilitate commercial offtake and investment agreements with them (Australian Government 2019c). It noted, for instance, how, “following the issuing of an interim rule amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to implement a section of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, the US Department of Defense is prohibited from purchasing devices that contain certain magnets or tungsten from North Korea, China, Russia and Iran” (2019c, 6), opening a window of opportunity for Australian companies. In November 2019, Australia and the United States formalized their partnership with a project agreement signed by Geoscience Australia and the US Geological Survey, building on the letter of intent signed earlier (Ministers for the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources 2019). In December 2019, the Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative—a research collaboration between Geological Survey of Canada, Geoscience Australia, and US Geological Survey to pool mineral resource information, develop scientific consensus, identify new sources of supply, and promote critical minerals discovery—held its inaugural meeting in Ottawa, as discussed earlier. Likewise, in 2019, the Australian Government joined the US-led Energy Resource Governance Initiative to promote sound governance of the mining sector and resilient energy mineral supply chains (Robinson 2020a). Australia also secured partnerships with Japan, the United States, India, and the EU, with discussions under way for bilateral arrangements with the United Kingdom and Korea. In November 2020, Australia was welcomed along with Canada as a member of the EU-US-Japan Trilateral on Raw Materials. These measures, as Jessica Robinson, former head of Australia’s Critical Minerals Facilitation Office, observed, signalled Australia’s interest in moving up in the value chain from exploration and extraction to processing, separation, refining, and niche manufacturing capabilities (Robinson 2020b).

As the firms in Greenland currently producing expand and those prospecting or exploring eventually commence production, Greenland is well placed to become one of the United Kingdom’s leading import sources for a number of critical minerals, including rare earth elements. Many of these firms will rely on UK expertise and mining finance, as is already the case, and potentially also look to use or to develop processing and logistical operations in the United Kingdom, or to connect with rare earth permanent magnet producers and a range of end users there. In December 2020, the formerly ASX-listed and currently LSE-listed firm Pensana announced that it is looking to develop the United Kingdom’s first rare earths processing plant in Hull, a site chosen also for the city’s excellent port and infrastructure. If successful, Pensana states, the plant will be one of two major producers of rare earth oxides outside China (BBC News 2020). Although the plant is being set up to process materials from Pensana’s Longonjo Rare Earths Project in Angola, the management recognizes its future potential as a multi-use facility. The ASX-listed firm Peak Resources, likewise, plans to construct a refinery at Teesside that would receive rare earth concentrate from its planned Ngualla Rare Earth Project in Tanzania to produce neodymium praseodymium oxide and other separated rare earth products, and become the second fully integrated producer of the former alloy outside China (Mining Review Africa 2021). Furthermore, Cheshire-based Less Common Metals—the only rare earth magnet alloy producer outside China and Japan—is exploring the possibility of establishing a fully integrated supply chain for rare earth permanent magnet production in the United Kingdom (Saklatvala 2020). On all counts, it is as much in the interest of the United Kingdom as that of Greenland to ensure these mineral resources can be imported into the United Kingdom on a tariff- and quota-free basis, as was the case under the EU-OCT (Overseas Countries and Territories) arrangement within the scope of which UK-Greenland trade fell while the United Kingdom was still an EU member state. The potential linkages between producers in Greenland and importers, processors, manufacturers, and end users in the United Kingdom could be crucial to the development of integrated North Atlantic, FVEY, and possibly also FVEY-EU-EEA supply chains.

Although companies from New Zealand do not appear to have been as active as their British, Canadian, American, and Australian counterparts in critical minerals projects in the wider North, New Zealand has an increasingly outward-looking mining sector and growing technical expertise in critical minerals research and would be a strategic partner in any FVEY Critical Minerals Alliance.

The Five Eyes Critical Minerals Alliance and Enhanced Partnership with Greenland

It is precisely as the FVEY allies—the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—and their European partners look to reduce their dependence on China for critical minerals, including rare earths, that Greenland grows so strategically important. When it comes to rare earths alone, Greenland is reported to hold 38.5 million tonnes of rare earth oxides and is believed to have enough rare earths to meet at least a quarter of global demand in the future (Harvey 2012).

The ASX-listed Australian firm Greenland Minerals, which holds a 100 per cent interest in the Kvanefjeld multi-element rare earths project in southern Greenland, sits on a rare earths resource of a billion tonnes in three zones in the Ilimaussaq complex—Kvanefjeld, Sørensen, and Zone 3. It has promoted the project as comprising the world’s second-largest rare earth deposit and sixth-largest deposit of uranium: 11.1 million tonnes of rare earth oxide and 593 million pounds of uranium. Greenland Minerals is partly owned by the Shanghai-listed Chinese rare earths giant Shenghe Resources Holding Company Ltd. The project, thus, has been controversial for two main reasons—environmental concerns, relating to the risk of radioactive pollution and toxic waste and its implications for the local community, agriculture, and water quality in what is, rather exceptionally, an arable area within Greenland; and security concerns, relating to the implications of Chinese ownership and influence in a territory so strategically important to the United States and its allies. As discussed earlier, its fate is now uncertain due to the legislation introduced by the new government in Greenland banning uranium mining and the extraction of resources with a uranium content of 100 ppm.

The privately owned Australian firm Tanbreez holds licences to the Kringlerne project not far from Kvanefjeld in southern Greenland and is believed to sit on substantial reserves of rare earths as well. The company claims that it is probably “the largest rare earth deposit in the world especially of the heavy rare earths such as dysprosium.” The project’s major commodities include tantalum, niobium, rare earth elements, and zirconium, though the deposit will also produce hafnium, tungsten, arfvedsonite, and feldspar. Tanbreez’s JORC reserves stand at 29 million tonnes of contained REE in some 4.7 billion tonnes. It has had fewer obstacles to overcome with respect to opposition from local communities and environmental groups than Greenland Minerals, as the deposit contains only background values of thorium and uranium in the eudialyte, so the final REE contains no radioactive elements. That would explain why Tanbreez has largely escaped controversy and received its exploitation licence in 2020.

The TSXV-listed Canadian firm Hudson Resources holds the licence to the Sarfartoq carbonatite exploration project, believed to be rich in neodymium and a high-grade niobium/tantalum. Hudson’s Sarfartoq REE project is near the main international airport of Kangerlussuaq. It has been drilled out and has a 43-101-compliant resource that has outlined over 30 million kilograms of neodymium and praseodymium to date. It still has substantial upside to define more tonnes of high-grade REEs. It has completed a preliminary economic assessment and is moving to pre-feasibility in 2022 with the objective of making a production decision in 2023.

The London-headquartered British company Stallion Resources presents itself as “the owner and developer of the largest undeveloped Niobium-Tantalum-Zirconium-Rare Earths Project in the world, the Motzfeldt Deposit in Southern Greenland,” which has a substantial defined JORC mineral resource of 340 metric tonnes with a contained metal inventory of 1,564,000 tonnes of zirconium (ZrO2), 884,000 tonnes of total rare earth oxides (TREO), 629,000 tonnes of niobium (Nb2O5), and 41,000 tonnes of tantalum (Ta2O5) (Stallion Resources 2021).

In November 2021, the Perth-headquartered Australian firm Eclipse Metals announced that it had identified high-grade polymetallic rare earth mineralization at the Ivittuut Project in Greenland, returning results of 536.30 ppm total rare earth elements, 3.54 per cent tin, and 3,680 ppm tungsten, with uranium levels of ranging from 0.7 to 24.3 ppm, much lower than the maximum limit of 100 ppm introduced in the Government of Greenland’s new legislation (Shields 2021).

Greenland’s vast critical minerals reserves and the sheer number of British, Canadian, and Australian companies operating in Greenland make it a new frontier for FVEY, as well as FVEY-EU-EEA co-operation. While the FVEY intelligence alliance can trace its origins to the Atlantic Charter in 1941 and the 1943 British-US Communication Intelligence Agreement (later formalized as the United Kingdom–United States of America Agreement in 1946), it has evolved over the years—not least through the inclusion of Canada in 1948 and Australia and New Zealand in 1956, as well as co-operation with third-party partners, such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Singapore, and South Korea. The principal proposals, thus, are, first, to extend the framework of the FVEY alliance, from joint co-operation in signals, geo-spatial, defence, security, and human intelligence, to more comprehensive political, scientific, and economic co-operation on critical minerals, including resource intelligence, technical collaboration, major project financing, and supply chain integration for minerals and materials critically important to national and economic security. Second, the FVEY allies should explore avenues to strengthen critical minerals collaboration among themselves, and to build an enhanced partnership with Greenland, to develop integrated, secure, stable, sustainable, resilient, and reliable critical minerals supply chains, thus enhancing resource security and autonomy and reducing dependence on China.

Although the scope for FVEY and FVEY-Greenland co-operation in this regard is limitless, the following ten “First Steps” provide a road map and lay the foundation for realizing the vision in the near-term future:

1. The Five Eyes should develop their respective Critical Mineral Strategies (Australia and the United States have already) and a collective strategy (as the EU has) and appoint agencies/facilitation offices to serve as central focal points and to lead engagement and activities.
2. The Five Eyes should develop bilateral frameworks of co-operation, such as the Canada-US and Australia-US Joint Action Plans on Critical Minerals Collaboration as a whole or on topics such as permanent magnets, batteries, and electric vehicles.
3. The Five Eyes should design a new multilateral framework of co-operation—the FVEY Critical Minerals Alliance—akin to the EU’s European Raw Material Alliance and ensure that it also provides an inclusive network for dialogue with industry and academia.
4. The United Kingdom and New Zealand should join the US-led Energy Resource Governance Initiative, which already includes the United States, Canada, and Australia, as well as Botswana, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Philippines, and Zambia.
5. The British Geological Survey and GNS Science should sign MoUs with the US Geological Survey, Geological Survey of Canada, and Geoscience Australia to strengthen international geoscience collaboration on critical minerals and join the Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative.
6. The Five Eyes should develop a Critical Minerals Prospectus and Major Projects Inventory, building on the Australian Critical Mineral Prospectus and Canada’s Major Projects Inventory and Canadian Mining Assets bulletin, to provide data about their capabilities, major projects, and overseas mining assets.
7. The Five Eyes should build on Australia’s Major Projects Facilitation Agency to develop either individual or a FVEY-wide Major Projects Agency that serves as a single entry point for major project proponents seeking tailored information or support with navigating regulatory approvals.
8. The Five Eyes should bring together government and non-government financing mechanisms, including UK Export Finance, US EXIM Bank, Export Development Canada, Export Finance Australia, and NZ Export Credit Office, to co-operate on critical minerals project financing.
9. The National Technology and Industrial Base, the framework to integrate and leverage defence industrial capabilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, should include New Zealand and be strengthened (even replicated) to develop integrated, secure, reliable critical minerals supply chains.
10. The Five Eyes should enter into an enhanced partnership with Greenland for critical minerals, strengthening geoscience and technical collaboration, financing major projects of strategic interest, developing processing capabilities, and integrating producers in Greenland in FVEY supply chains.

As this chapter has demonstrated, the Five Eyes Critical Minerals Alliance and its enhanced partnership with Greenland would enable closer collaboration among the Five Eyes partners on geoscience, resource intelligence, technical, and financing in, with, and beyond Greenland, and to benefit from integrated, secure, stable, sustainable, resilient, and reliable supply chains for minerals critical to their national and economic security.

This chapter builds on, but substantially expands and updates, an in-depth briefing produced by the author for the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research—“The British Army’s Think Tank”—in October 2020 (Menezes 2020) and a report produced by the author for the Polar Research and Policy Initiative in March 2021 (Menezes 2021).

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