Spartan Metals Corp. (TSXV: W | OTCQB: SPRMF) is advancing its flagship Eagle Project in eastern Nevada, a past-producing tungsten district being repositioned as a multi-metal critical minerals asset centered on tungsten, rubidium, silver and copper. The company’s strategy is to build a portfolio of strategic defense minerals in top-tier Western U.S. jurisdictions, with a focus on tungsten, rubidium, antimony, bismuth and arsenic.In an interview with InvestorNews.com host Tracy Hughes, President, CEO, and Director Brett Marsh described Eagle as a largely untested modern exploration target built on a historic production base. The project hosts the past-producing Tungstonia and Rees/Antelope tungsten mines, which together recorded historic production of 8,379 units at grades between 0.6% and 0.9% WO₃ between 1915 and 1956. The 20-square-kilometer land package lies about 120 kilometers northeast of Ely, Nevada, in the Kern Mountains and covers 4,936 acres across 244 unpatented Federal lode mining claims.Spartan’s current program at Eagle is built around three deposit types identified on the property—porphyry, skarn and carbonate replacement—hosting tungsten (W), silver (Ag) and rubidium (Rb), with associated copper, antimony, gold, lead, zinc, bismuth and arsenic. Company materials describe Eagle as an opportunity to delineate one of the largest and highest-grade tungsten and rubidium districts in the United States, including potential recovery of tungsten, rubidium and silver from legacy mill tailings at Tungstonia. Marsh noted that Spartan has completed 34 holes into the tailings for assay and two additional holes for metallurgical work to test whether they can provide an early source of cash flow.Rubidium, one of the less familiar critical minerals in Spartan’s portfolio, was a particular focus. Marsh highlighted its use in quantum computing, next-generation telecommunications, and atomic clocks that underpin advanced weapon systems and precision timing. As he put it, rubidium “has its fingers in a lot of different aspects of the industry, from high-tech into military applications.”A November 3, 2025, news release outlined the polymetallic potential at Eagle. Surface work and a review of historic rock-chip sampling have identified high-grade silver and base-metal replacement mineralization extending roughly 2.5 kilometers along the contact between the Tungstonia granite intrusion and carbonate host rocks south and southwest of the Tungstonia vein system. The mineralization is associated with previously unrecognized quartz veins with similar strike and spacing to those around the past-producing Tungstonia Mine, and rock-chip results include elevated silver, lead, copper and zinc typical of carbonate replacement deposits.Spartan sees similar potential on the Rees claim block, which also hosts two past-producing mines: Rees, another tungsten producer, and Antelope, a polymetallic silver-copper-antimony-arsenic deposit. At Antelope, historic production reports cited copper head grades of up to about 4% with significant silver, while recent fieldwork at Eagle has identified additional carbonate replacement-style targets with copper in the 1.5–2% range and silver up to about 900 grams per tonne.Spartan has broadened its investor base by securing a U.S. listing, with its common shares now trading on the OTCQB Venture Market under the symbol SPRMF as of November 17, 2025, complementing its TSX Venture Exchange listing under the symbol W.

A new Ontario law is turning digital cleaning records from a niche software feature into a compliance requirement, and Visionstate Corp. (TSXV: VIS) is positioning its technology at the centre of that shift.Visionstate is a growth-oriented company that invests in the research and development of technology in the realm of the Internet of Things, big data and analytics, and sustainability. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Visionstate IoT Inc., it helps businesses improve operational efficiencies, reduce costs and elevate customer satisfaction with devices that track and monitor guest activities and requests. Its WANDA™ smart device has been deployed in hospitals, airports, shopping centres and other public facilities across and beyond North America, forming the foundation of a Software-as-a-Service model built around monitoring how facilities are cleaned and maintained.In an interview with InvestorNews.com host Tracy Hughes, CEO and Director John Putters linked that existing product set directly to Ontario’s Bill 190, which mandates digital cleaning records in certain public washrooms. “Bill 190 is essentially legislating digital cleaning records for health and safety,” he said. “So Bill 190 is really to protect people, to make sure that there’s access to the cleaning records and what’s been done and when and by whom and all the rest of it, which is essentially what Wanda did in the first place.” Putters noted that “our product and that legislation meet in the middle at a very nice point,” and said the company has “been capitalizing on it.”Public-health concerns provide the backdrop. “Obviously, we live in a world now where disease and infections can become pandemics,” Putters said, adding that “in Canada we’ve even lost our status as measles-free.” While he was careful not to overstate the impact of any single technology—“I’m not going to say Wanda is going to address that”—he connected clean, well-kept facilities with efforts to reduce the spread of disease and framed digital records as a way to provide verifiable evidence of what has been done.The company is using Bill 190’s January 1st effective date to drive new customer adoption. Putters acknowledged that the law represents a burden for operators: “Nobody likes legislation, right? Nobody likes to be legislated. You know, I’m doing things and the government comes along and says there’s new legislation that you’ve got to comply with, and if you don’t comply with it, it’s going to be a $10,000 fine.” Visionstate’s response has been to remove an immediate cost barrier. “We decided we’ll onboard all these companies up until December 31st and not bill them until January 1st, which is when the legislation comes into effect,” he explained. “This has been extremely effective as a strategy. So it does forego some revenue in the short term, but as a Software-as-a-Service model, these contracts can go on for years and years and years, and we have an 80% margin on our software once it’s out there.”That approach, Putters said, is already visible in the company’s metrics. “Our acquisition rate has gone up year over year probably 200 to 300% as a result of that strategy, and all of those companies will be billed starting January 1st,” he told Hughes. He described the emphasis on scale and data as deliberate: “Our whole strategy is to get as much of the market as possible as quickly as possible to increase the value, and frankly to increase the ability to collect data—because it’s all about the data at the end of the day, which is why the five largest companies in the world are all essentially data companies, whether that’s Meta or X or whatever.”

Critical minerals are no longer a niche subset of the periodic table; they are the wiring diagram of geopolitical power, and Canada is sitting on a toolkit it still hasn’t decided how to use.As Co-Chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), Jack Lifton has spent decades mapping that wiring diagram, from obscure byproduct metals to the politics that decide where refineries get built. CMI, which I help lead, has created as a “brain trust” for this emerging economy: a global hub that connects companies, capital markets and policymakers, backed by masterclasses, a weekly Critical Minerals Report, and an annual summit that now draws ministers, institutional investors and C-suite executives to Toronto.When I asked Lifton what he plans to discuss at PDAC 2026 in Toronto, he did not start with lithium or copper, but with the quiet metals hidden in their shadow. “They’ve asked me to give an introductory talk and then chair a panel on the sourcing of critical minerals for the electronics industry in Canada,” he said. But his real focus is on the companion metals that fall out of existing operations: “The metals for electronics, the critical metals, come as companion metals in copper mining, aluminum mining, zinc mining, silver mining. So what they are is, for example, gallium, germanium, tellurium, selenium, cadmium, metals like that, and of course silicon.”This is not a theoretical list. Lifton’s point is that the raw material base for an advanced electronics industry already exists inside Canada’s established mining complex. “All of these metals or metalloids can be produced in Canada as byproducts of major mining,” he told me. He ticks through the map: Rio Tinto Group (LSE: RIO) (NYSE: RIO) in Quebec processing bauxite into aluminum and, as a result, being able to produce gallium and scandium; Teck Resources Limited (TSX: TECK.A / TECK.B) (NYSE: TECK) mining zinc in Western Canada, with germanium as a companion; high-quality silicon deposits in Manitoba now attracting junior developers; tellurium and selenium emerging as byproducts of copper. “You have the entire suite of critical electronic minerals, which are byproducts,” he said. “All could be produced in Canada, and as far as the measures, they will be produced in Canada.”If that sounds like a blueprint for an industrial policy, that is exactly how Lifton frames it. In his view, the missing step is not geology but intent. “Canada should take a hard look at enticing the electronics industry—manufacturing of chips and basic electronic devices like chips—because everything is there,” he argued. The PDAC panel he will chair is expected to include representatives from Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Teck alongside him. “This is interesting to me because normally I don’t talk to the majors,” he admitted. “These critical minerals for electronics are things that the majors can produce but really don’t know a lot about.”That gap—between what can be produced and what is strategically understood—is precisely where CMI has tried to position itself. Recent membership additions such as Quantum Critical Metals Corp. (TSX.V: LEAP | OTCQB: ATOXF | FSE: 86A1) show how the ecosystem is evolving around metals that, until recently, would barely have merited a line item in an annual report. Quantum, a junior explorer with projects focused on gallium, rubidium, cesium, antimony and germanium in Québec and British Columbia, joined CMI this fall, citing the Institute’s role in “support[ing] the clean energy transition, address[ing] supply chain vulnerabilities and strengthen[ing] national security.”

The United States is advancing one of its most significant government-backed critical minerals initiatives in years, and Pini Althaus, Managing Partner of Cove Capital LLC, has emerged as a central figure in its execution. In a discussion with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Althaus described recent meetings in Washington, D.C., where U.S. President Donald J. Trump and senior cabinet officials reviewed the tungsten supply-chain agreement between the United States and Kazakhstan. “It’s definitely a new dawn in Washington,” Althaus said. “The approach that this administration is taking to securing critical mineral supply chains is unprecedented,” noting direct involvement from the President, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Bergman. “We’re seeing practical outcomes,” he said, as agencies adopt what he called “a very commercial approach” to long-term supply-chain security.Cove Capital, founded in 2015 and focused since 2018 on critical minerals, has been developing projects intended to supply U.S. and allied industrial, technological, and defense needs. While the sector’s attention has largely focused on rare earth elements, lithium, copper, and cobalt, Althaus emphasized that tungsten remains indispensable for national-security applications. “Tungsten—the uses are numerous, but especially for military applications, like munitions and armor-piercing ammunition,” he said. Because of its high melting point and density, tungsten is also used in space, nuclear systems, and industrial manufacturing. China controls more than 80 percent of global tungsten supply, and, as Althaus noted, “earlier this year also enacted a ban on tungsten exports to the United States… right around the time that President Trump took the oath of office.” This left the U.S. without a long-term supply source.The Kazakhstan project at the center of the new bilateral agreement contains what Althaus described as “in excess of 10% of global tungsten reserves.” The Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty deposits, held through Severniy Katpar LLP, have been extensively studied, with a 2023 feasibility study reporting 1.4 million tonnes of JORC-compliant tungsten trioxide (WO₃). According to the data provided, the deposits represent roughly 70% of Kazakhstan’s known tungsten resources. Planned output of 12,000 tonnes per year equates to about 15% of current global production. “At even a 12,000-ton-per-annum rate,” Althaus said, “it’s over a 50-year supply for the United States for tungsten.”The agreement was formalized through an MOU signed by President Trump and Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Althaus described it as “a government-to-government deal” in which the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) issued Letters of Interest. EXIM’s letter supports up to USD $900 million in financing. Total project development costs are estimated at USD $1.1 billion. According to the structure described, Cove Kaz Capital Group LLC will hold 70% of Severniy Katpar LLP, and Kazakhstan’s national mining company, JSC Tau-Ken Samruk, will hold 30%. Cove Kaz will market 100% of production under an LOI with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.Althaus confirmed that the project will use a public-private model. “I anticipate that what we’ll see out of the U.S. government is the debt side. We’ll be bringing the equity side,” he said. Based on the feasibility study and current tungsten prices, he cited “almost $80 billion of minerals in this one project.” He stated that development will be led by Dominic Heaton, former CEO of Masan Resources, whose team developed the Nui Phao tungsten project in Vietnam. Cove plans to complete an updated Definitive Feasibility Study, with mine and plant construction targeted to begin within 24 months.

The U.S. clean-energy and defense supply chain may be on the cusp of a major shift — and not on American soil. In a recent interview with InvestorNews host Jack Lifton, Pini Althaus, managing partner of Cove Capital LLC, detailed his firm’s expanding footprint in Central Asia as it seeks to supply critical minerals to the United States and its allies.Althaus described how, following his tenure at USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR, he turned his focus outward: “The United States itself doesn’t have enough developed projects for critical minerals here. … Whilst we endeavour to have a domestic supply chain … we’re going to have to look overseas.” According to him, the firm “saw Central Asia … as the lowest-hanging fruit.” He said that since early 2023, the company has been active in Kazakhstan, and that they are “the first, and I believe still only, U.S. company to have critical minerals licenses there.”The centerpiece of the strategy is the tungsten deal. Althaus told Lifton that on November 6 the company “was awarded … the largest tungsten project in the world, which contains in excess of 10 % of global tungsten reserves.” The venture is structured as a 70/30 joint-venture between a Cove Capital portfolio company and Kazakhstan’s national mining company, JSC Tau-Ken Samruk, with development costs estimated at roughly USD $1.1 billion. U.S. government backing includes a letter of interest for USD $900 million from the Export-Import Bank of the United States. According to Reuters reporting, construction is expected within two years, with production beginning in about 3½ years, and refining operations also in Kazakhstan.Althaus emphasized that the agreement is not only about mining ore: “We will be taking it further downstream, all the way down to metals, tools, etc. And Kazakhstan has the ability to do this.” He added that their technical team is led by Dominic Heaton, the former CEO of Masan Resources, which developed the Nui Phao tungsten mine and refinery in Vietnam.Lifton pointed out the strategic implications — noting that China currently controls more than 80 % of global tungsten reserves and enacted export controls to the U.S. earlier this year. Althaus agreed, framing the project in broader supply-chain terms: “Slowly but surely, chipping away at the monopoly. … The U.S. government is not going to develop the projects itself, but it is supporting them in a structured, commercial way.” He suggested that Washington is now taking a “very commercial approach” to the issue of critical-minerals sourcing, moving beyond the memorandum-of-understanding era.Beyond tungsten the firm is exploring other critical minerals in Central Asia. “In Kazakhstan we have lithium, beryllium, niobium, tin. And we are looking at opportunities in the other C5 countries. I’ve made several trips to Tashkent this year. I’ve met President Mirziyoyev four times already in 2025.” He added that Uzbekistan has also “enacted business reforms and reforms to its mining code, making it easier for companies like us to develop projects.”Althaus reflected on how the regulatory and political environment in Washington has evolved. “When I first went to Washington … there were only a handful of members of Congress who knew what a critical mineral was. … I think now this is one of the only bipartisan issues in Washington. And I don’t see the momentum stopping.”The interview underscores how a private-sector investment firm is stepping into a space traditionally dominated by state actors — deploying capital, negotiating with foreign governments, lining up downstream commitments, and aligning with U.S. policy objectives. The Kazakhstan tungsten agreement is reported to target production of approximately 12,000 metric tonnes per annum, representing about 15 % of current global output. The resource base is judged sufficient to support a 50-plus-year mine life.

“Shipping means revenue, means cash for the shareholders.” That was how Peter Clausi, Director and Vice President of Capital Markets at Silver Bullet Mines Corp. (TSXV: SBMI | OTCQB: SBMCF), described the company’s latest operational milestone. In a discussion with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes, Clausi confirmed that following a first shipment of approximately 4,000 pounds of gold concentrate from the KT Gold Mine and about 2,000 pounds from the SC Mine, Silver Bullet has prepared about 2,500 pounds of concentrate from the KT Gold Mine for its second shipment.The company’s news release, issued November 17, 2025, noted that payment for initial shipments will be made 60 days from receipt at the refinery, and that future shipments are targeted every two weeks, each ranging between roughly 2,500 and 4,000 pounds of concentrate. In the interview, Clausi reiterated the cadence: “Every two weeks. Every two weeks. Every two weeks.”Clausi emphasized the importance of assay results in determining the value of the shipments. “We’re not talking dollar amounts yet,” he stated. “The buyer will run its own assays. We will share … our assay results, and then we will figure out … what that shipment is worth and we’ll be paid.” He added that the independent lab results for the SC Mine material had exceeded detection limits across the board—“every single sample ran over the detection limits … It’s an excellent problem to have.”Regarding processing, Clausi explained the technical process in simple terms: “If there’s, let’s say, X amount of gold in the host material … you go through the process … you’re stripping away anything that isn’t gold, so what you have left … is gold in the concentrate.” He also clarified that Silver Bullet is concentrating its efforts on the KT Mine because “we believe that there’s a lot more value per ton in the KT material—gold—than there is in the SC material—silver.” He confirmed that material from the KT Mine is already in the mill and on the ground undergoing processing into gold concentrate in preparation for the next shipment. He also pointed ahead to the next quarter: “Our announcement of what the KT material from the first and second shipments assays at … how that translates into ‘X’ dollars of revenue. That’ll be a very exciting news release.… we’re also doing work up in Idaho, and there should be additional news about the great progress we’re making up there.”

From the moment you touch down in the desert‐sculpted Erongo region of Namibia, you sense the tectonic shift underway — and ReeXploration Inc. (TSXV: REE) is positioning itself at the heart of it. This Canadian exploration company is focused on meeting the surging global demand for secure, responsible supplies of critical minerals essential to the clean-energy transition, advanced technologies and national defence. Its flagship Eureka Project in central Namibia hosts rare earth element (REE) mineralisation in monazite, rich in neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) magnet metals, with bench-scale testing confirming it can produce a clean, Western-standard concentrate. Supported by a Namibia-based technical team and guided by global critical minerals experts, ReeXploration is advancing discovery-led growth for REEs and other critical minerals — and is building a credible, ESG-aligned platform positioned to benefit from the global race to diversify and secure responsible supply chains."Namibia is arguably one of the most stable and best jurisdictions in Africa, and they have a long, proud history of mining," Drysdale begins when asked why the company is there. He continues: "They’ve got three of the world’s largest uranium deposits … Namibia is head and shoulders above a lot of other jurisdictions in Africa." He adds matter-of-factly that: “Up until recently, it has been relatively under-explored for critical minerals … we came across one called the Eureka Project. So that’s why Namibia — it’s by far one of the best jurisdictions to be based in.”Proximity and infrastructure matter as much as the geology. “So the Walvis Bay Port, which is about 180 kilometres away from our project on a main road,” Drysdale explains, “is arguably the best port on the west coast of Africa. … With it being positioned on the west coast of Africa, it has a direct link to North America and Europe … without having to go around Africa or around the Horn or through the Suez Canal.” He is clearly sizing up geopolitical supply chains as much as rocks and ore.Yet what distinguishes this company perhaps most clearly is what Drysdale calls a “metallurgy-first” development approach. "From a crustal abundance point of view, rare earths are abundantly available but extracting them and getting to a Western-amenable product … was the problem," he says. “So, we decided to flip exploration on its head … we would look at rare earth projects and be able to solve the metallurgy and extract a product first at scale, before looking for scalability of the deposit.” He points out key criteria: “it has to have a low thorium content, so it doesn’t have high radioactivity; it allows for simple shipping; it has products that are easily winnable through conventional processing.” Only after ticking those boxes did they proceed to explore scalability.That strategy now seems to be bearing fruit. Drysdale reviews the recent developments at Eureka: “We’ve got geochemistry up to 8.75 % TREO in surface samples, with confirmed visible monazite in carbonatite on surface. And this really is an undrilled monster that hasn’t been previously tested in any of our drilling.” He emphasises two things: “We’ve identified a new area — from a scale and TREO perspective — that is bigger and better than what we’ve previously seen, with visible monazite on surface.” Adding: “Our historical work is now giving us shape to a deep-seated system that shows scalability and size potential.”He breaks down the key target: “We are mainly looking for neodymium and praseodymium — a monazite-hosted NdPr project. … NdPr are extremely critical in high-frequency magnets, drivetrains, and defence. … These are the minerals currently controlled by China … For us … our simple monazite with easy metallurgy … and that product being a high-value NdPr product … makes us very confident we’re in the right space and looking for the right mineral.”

In a rare alignment between a junior exploration company and a national research institution, Canuc Resources Corporation (TSXV: CDA | OTCQB: CNUCF) has found its flagship East Sudbury Project (Northeastern Ontario, Canada) under the direct scrutiny of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). The federal agency has commissioned a seismic survey on Canuc’s McLaren Lake Fault Zone (MLFZ)—a move that company President and CEO Christopher Berlet describes as both validating and transformative.“For me, it started in 2024 when I was on site,” Berlet recalled in his conversation with InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes. “There were a number of geoscientists there from all over the world—IOCG specialists, iron oxide copper gold deposit-type specialists from Australia, the Netherlands, South Korea. I recall being astounded at the number of places where they had come from.” The experts, Berlet explained, were evaluating where NRCan could “spend money for maximum impact for very large deposit-type discoveries.” Their final assessment singled out Canuc’s McLaren Lake Fault Zone as the most deserving of deeper research.The seismic survey—scheduled for late March or early April 2026—will be executed by Optiseis Solutions Ltd. of Calgary, one of Canada’s leaders in subsurface imaging. Its objective is to illuminate fluid pathways and fault structures associated with Metasomatic Iron Alkali Calcic (MIAC) and Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) systems, both of which are known to host valuable copper, gold, and critical mineral concentrations. “We were delighted by the commitment from Natural Resources Canada to proceed, spend money on the project, and conduct this seismic survey,” Berlet said. “The result of their work—and they reviewed many properties across the country—was that this McLaren Lake Fault Zone on Canuc’s ground was the property that most deserved further work and research.”Berlet emphasized that Canuc will be closely involved in the data interpretation process. “There will be several specialists involved in interpretation, and it will provide very specific actionable intelligence for follow-up drilling,” he said, noting that results could be available within one month of survey completion.The McLaren Lake development is part of Canuc’s East Sudbury Project (ESP)—a 19,710-hectare land package located roughly 20 kilometers northeast of the prolific Sudbury Mining Camp. The company believes the ESP hosts multiple centers of mineralization consistent with IOCG and affiliated critical and precious metal systems. Berlet sees these targets as “company-makers,” comparing their potential to the globally renowned Candelaria and Olympic Dam deposits.“We have a very compelling case for a silver-dominant IOCG in Mexico on our San Javier claims,” he said, referring to Canuc’s parallel project in Sonora State, Mexico. “We’ve found up to bonanza grades of silver. We’ve found massive magnetite anomalies—magnetic anomalies. And we have one in particular that looks like on either side, veins daylight with bonanza grades of silver. There’s silver in soils above this magnetic anomaly. It’s a kilometer long, about 800 meters wide, and could support a very substantial silver metal inventory in magnetite, which is the IOCG model.”Supporting exploration with sustainable cash flow is central to Berlet’s operating philosophy. “In the instance of Canuc, we have these long-life natural gas wells in Texas,” he said. “We’ve added a 4% royalty on the tailings that we’re processing on the site of the Scadding tailings rehabilitation project in East Sudbury. And now we’re drilling for a high-grade gold lens… that can support a more substantive—still small scale for a mining company—but robust capital opportunity.”