Brazil will avoid exclusive agreements on critical minerals

Brazil intends to avoid exclusivity agreements with other countries regarding its critical minerals, remaining open to seeking partnerships with various nations.

Recently, the administration of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced details of the Project Vault, an initiative led by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), which seeks to establish a domestic strategy to guarantee the supply of critical minerals.

The EXIM board of directors approved a direct loan of up to US$10 billion (bn) for Project Vault, more than double the largest financing in the bank’s history. The initiative aims to protect domestic manufacturers against supply shocks, expand the production and processing of critical raw materials in the United States, and structurally strengthen the country’s critical minerals sector.

As part of this effort, the United States government also held meetings with representatives from several countries in an attempt to create a global alliance for the development of critical minerals and rare earths, including with representatives of the Brazilian government.

However, according to a representative of the Brazilian government interviewed by BNamericas, on condition of anonymity, Brazil is not interested in entering into any kind of exclusivity agreement with any country to develop its critical minerals.

“I consider the Brazilian government’s strategy to be correct, because you have to seek the best market solutions for the development of the critical minerals chain and with the largest possible number of participants”, said José Carlos Martins, a mining consultant and partner at Neelix Consulting, to BNamericas.

The Brazilian government’s strategy of avoiding exclusivity agreements comes at a time when Brazil’s critical minerals are attracting the attention of several countries. 

Recently, representatives of the European Union signaled interest in investing in critical mineral projects in Brazil.

In addition, the Brazilian government also expects to sign an agreement with India regarding its critical minerals, in view of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s visit to India, scheduled to take place in the coming weeks.

“Brazil should take advantage of the great interest in critical minerals to also develop locally technologies to be used in projects linked to critical minerals, as well as work on more research to develop additional applications for these critical minerals”, said Martins.

Although Brazil indicates that it does not want an exclusivity agreement with any country for the development of critical minerals, such a stance should not create significant friction with any government. 

Lula is expected to address the issue in detail during a visit planned to take place in March in the United States and, recently, the American government supported financing for a rare earths project in Brazil.

Mineração Serra Verde, controlled by the global investment firm Denham Capital, recently obtained financing of US$565 million (mn) from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) for its rare earths project in Brazil. The company is expanding the Pela Ema project, located in the Brazilian state of Goiás.