One year ago today, President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a critical minerals framework at the White House. The agreement promised to build a supply chain independent of China. Twelve months later, two priority projects have broken ground. Neither will produce a tonne of output before 2029.
That is the honest measure of year one.
What the Framework Was
The United States–Australia Framework for Securing of Supply in the Mining and Processing of Critical Minerals and Rare Earths was signed on October 20, 2025. It committed both governments to financing and developing a pipeline of priority critical minerals and rare earth projects valued at $8.5 billion.
The timing was deliberate. China had just imposed new export controls on rare earths. The framework gave Washington a visible allied alternative — and gave Canberra a strategic opening for capital and long-term offtake.
Each government agreed to provide at least $1 billion in project financing within six months. Both met that target. A joint US-Australia Critical Minerals Supply Security Response Group was established to identify priority minerals and supply vulnerabilities. The inaugural Mining, Minerals and Metals Investment Ministerial was held in Tokyo in March 2026.
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Two projects were designated as immediate priorities. Both are now under construction.
Project One: Alcoa’s Gallium Plant in Western Australia
Alcoa broke ground at the Alcoa-Sojitz Gallium Recovery Project on August 24, 2026. The facility is co-located at Alcoa’s Wagerup alumina refinery, approximately 120 kilometres southeast of Perth.
The plant is designed to produce 100 tonnes of gallium annually. That is equivalent to approximately 10% of current global gallium supply. Gallium is a critical input for semiconductors and advanced defence technologies.
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The project involves three governments. Australia committed up to $200 million in concessional equity finance. The Australian government also secured offtake rights for a portion of the produced gallium. Japan is involved through Japan Australia Gallium Associates, a venture that includes Sojitz Corporation and Japanese government backing. The United States provided support through the framework’s financing commitments.
Gallium matters because China controls the overwhelming majority of global production. Beijing imposed export controls on gallium in 2023. Those controls remain in place. The Wagerup facility will not make Australia a dominant producer. But it will establish a non-Chinese source at meaningful scale.
Construction has begun. A production timeline has not been publicly confirmed.
Project Two: Arafura’s Nolans Rare Earths Project in the Northern Territory
Arafura Rare Earths made its final investment decision on May 21, 2026. Construction began in September 2026. A formal groundbreaking ceremony was held on October 8.
The Nolans project is located approximately 135 kilometres northeast of Alice Springs. It is designed to be Australia’s first fully integrated ore-to-oxide rare earths operation. That means mining, processing and refining will all happen on a single site in the Northern Territory. Output will not be exported as raw concentrate for overseas processing.
The project is designed to produce 4,440 tonnes of neodymium-praseodym oxide (NdPr) per year. NdPr is the core input for permanent magnets used in electric vehicle motors and wind turbines. At full capacity, Nolans is projected to supply approximately 4-5% of global rare earth magnet demand. The mine has a projected life of 38 years.
Arafura has binding offtake agreements covering 80.4% of planned annual output — approximately 3,570 tonnes of NdPr per year. The project has secured more than $1 billion in debt financing and $800-900 million in equity, with an additional $462 million in completion support.
First production is expected in mid-2029.
Why Processing Is the Central Gap
The framework’s explicit objective is mining, separation and processing. That last word is the hard part.
China controls approximately 70% of global rare earth mining. It controls approximately 90% of global rare earth processing and refining. Australia has significant reserves. It also has a structural problem. Most raw rare earth material mined in Australia is exported abroad — primarily to China — for separation and refining. The framework exists precisely to change that.
The Nolans project addresses this directly. Its ore-to-oxide model keeps value-added processing inside Australia. That is what separates it from a conventional mine feeding Chinese refineries. It is also what makes it strategically significant to Washington.
But Nolans will not produce its first tonne of NdPr oxide until 2029 at the earliest. The Alcoa gallium plant is a recovery operation at an existing alumina refinery — significant for gallium, but not a broad rare earth separation facility.
Australia currently has two operating rare earth mines and no major rare earth separation or refining facilities at commercial scale outside of Lynas’s Kalgoorlie operations. That processing gap will not close in year one. It may not close fully by year three.
What Else Is in the Pipeline
Beyond the two flagship projects, the framework’s March 2026 ministerial identified additional priority investments. Northern Minerals’ heavy rare earths project in Western Australia was also listed. That project targets dysprosium and terbium — the heavy rare earth elements that are hardest to source outside China.
Iluka Resources received AUD 1.65 billion in government support to build a rare earth refinery in Western Australia. That facility was expected to open in 2026. Lynas Rare Earths — already contracted to the US Department of Defense for a rare earth processing facility in Seadrift, Texas — has continued to develop its Kalgoorlie operations as part of the broader allied processing push.
These projects collectively represent a meaningful shift in the architecture of rare earth supply outside China. They do not yet represent a functioning alternative supply chain.
The Processing Timeline Problem
Analysts have noted that building a secure, independent rare earth supply chain from Australia to the United States may take 10 to 20 years. Year one has been faster than that baseline implies. FIDs have been made. Construction has started. Offtake has been contracted.
But the output does not exist yet. The processing facilities are not operational. The separation and refining capacity that would allow Australia to deliver finished rare earth oxides — rather than concentrates — is still under construction or in development.
That gap matters because it is where China’s leverage is most acute. Export controls on rare earth mining output are disruptive. Export controls on separation and refining technology are more so. As long as the West lacks sufficient separation capacity, the finished product chain remains exposed.
What to Watch
The Nolans construction schedule is the most consequential near-term variable. Arafura has committed to construction starting in September 2026. Financing milestones must be met by December 2026 or commitments may lapse. An environmental challenge from the Arid Lands Environment Centre over the project’s significant project status in the Northern Territory remains unresolved. If the financing conditions are not met on schedule, the entire package could be at risk despite shareholder approval.
The Alcoa gallium plant’s construction timeline has not been publicly detailed. How quickly the facility can reach its 100-tonne annual output target will determine whether it closes the gallium supply gap at meaningful speed.
The performance of the US-Australia Critical Minerals Supply Security Response Group — and whether it accelerates permitting for the next wave of projects — will indicate whether the framework becomes an institutional mechanism or a one-time announcement.
China’s export control posture on rare earths remains the external pressure that drives the framework’s urgency. Beijing suspended some October 2025 rare earth controls through a November 2026 stand-down. When that suspension expires, the pressure on allied processing capacity will sharpen again.
Year One: Real Progress, Real Distance Still to Travel
The US-Australia critical minerals framework has produced more in twelve months than most bilateral resource agreements achieve in five years. Two projects are under construction. Capital has been committed. Offtake has been contracted. A governance structure is operational.
None of that is nothing. All of it is also early.
The framework’s objective is a supply chain independent of China. That requires separation and refining at industrial scale, outside Chinese territory, delivering finished product to allied manufacturers. Australia has the geology. It is building the infrastructure. It does not yet have the operating capacity.
Year one has been about breaking ground. Year two will be about whether construction stays on schedule and whether the next wave of processing projects secures financing before the window of geopolitical urgency narrows.
The gap between what was signed and what has been built is not a failure. It is the nature of mining. The question is whether the pace of construction matches the pace at which allied supply chains need the output.
Sources:
- US Embassy Australia — One Year Anniversary Statement
- Australia–US Framework Signing — Prime Minister of Australia
- Australia and US Advance Cooperation — Australian Dept of Industry
- US–Australia Framework $8.5B Pipeline — Minerals Council of Australia
- Alcoa Breaks Ground on Gallium Plant — Engineering News
- Arafura Reaches FID — NT Territory Coordinator
- How US-Australia Rare Earth Deal Aims to Loosen China’s Grip — SCMP
