One year ago today, President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed the United States-Australia Critical Minerals Framework at the White House. The agreement was designed to leverage American industrial demand and Australian mining capacity. Together they aimed to build supply chains for minerals that China currently dominates. The White House described the arrangement as a model for supply-chain cooperation globally.
Twelve months on, two projects backed by the framework have broken ground. Billions more remain at the letter of interest stage. That gap between commitment and construction is the honest measure of where the framework stands.
Project One: Alcoa Wagerup Gallium
On August 24, Alcoa broke ground on a gallium production facility at its Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia. The governments of Australia, Japan and the United States joined the ceremony. The plant does not require a new mine. Gallium occurs as a trace element in bauxite and passes through the alumina refining process. The Wagerup facility recovers it from streams that currently go to waste. At design capacity, the plant will produce 100 tonnes of gallium per year. That represents approximately 10% of current global gallium demand. The facility will create up to 200 construction jobs.
The financing structure is multilateral. The US Department of War announced an estimated $174 million equity investment on August 31. Export Finance Australia provided support under the Critical Minerals Facility. Japan’s involvement comes through Japan Australia Gallium Associates, a venture involving Sojitz Corporation and the Japanese government. Alcoa will construct and operate the plant.
Gallium sits near the top of the US critical minerals list. China controls more than 80% of global gallium production. It introduced export licensing controls on the metal in 2023, and those restrictions have since tightened. Wagerup recovers gallium from an existing industrial process rather than developing a new resource. That approach offers a faster path to production than a greenfield mine.
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Project Two: Arafura Nolans Rare Earths
The second construction milestone came earlier this month. Arafura Rare Earths began construction at its Nolans project in the Northern Territory, approximately 135 kilometres north of Alice Springs. Nolans will be Australia’s first fully integrated ore-to-oxide rare earths operation. It mines the ore, processes and refines it on site, and ships finished rare earth oxides. Nothing goes offshore for intermediate processing.
The project aims to deliver 4% to 5% of global rare earths demand once operational. First production is targeted for late 2029. At peak, construction will support more than 600 jobs. The operational workforce will be approximately 350. Over a 38-year mine life, Arafura estimates Nolans could contribute A$25.2 billion to the Northern Territory economy.
Arafura’s board reached a final investment decision in May 2026. It followed completion of a complex multinational financing package. Australia’s government committed A$1.2 billion ($840 million) through several mechanisms. Those include the Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve and an offtake arrangement under that reserve. Export credit agencies from the US, Canada, South Korea and Germany have also provided financing support. Binding offtake agreements are in place with Traxys North America and an Indian manufacturing group for NdPr oxide. Hancock Prospecting participated as a cornerstone equity investor.
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Nolans was one of the original priority projects identified at the October 2025 signing. Its move to construction within twelve months is the clearest sign that the framework is generating delivery, not just announcements.
The Broader Pipeline
At the time of the framework signing, EXIM issued seven letters of interest for Australian projects. Those letters totalled more than $2.2 billion in potential financing. They cover rare earths, graphite, magnesium, scandium and other strategic minerals across multiple states. Projects include Northern Minerals’ heavy rare earths project in Western Australia, Graphinex’s graphite development in Queensland and La Trobe Magnesium’s plans in Victoria.
Letters of interest are preliminary. They signal that a project meets the broad criteria for potential financing support. They do not represent approved loans, finalised terms or committed funding. Projects must progress through due diligence, credit approval and documentation before any money moves.
In April 2026, the two countries expanded their commitments to additional priority projects. EXIM and Export Finance Australia issued coordinated letters of support for up to $1 billion in combined financing for Ardea Resources’ Kalgoorlie nickel project in Western Australia. A further approximately $849 million in coordinated support was indicated for Tronox Holdings’ rare earths refinery development, also in Western Australia.
In August, the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital announced a conditional commitment for up to $400 million to support Sunrise Energy Metals’ Syerston scandium project in New South Wales. The proposed 25-year loan facility would fund development of the Australian deposit. It would extend to processing into scandium metal in the United States. That commitment remains subject to financial, legal, technical and other conditions. Syerston is not yet in construction.
Taken together, the US Embassy in Australia reports that the framework has generated more than A$5 billion ($3.5 billion) in announced support since the signing. The projects now in construction target supply of roughly 10% of global gallium and nearly 5% of global rare earths demand at full capacity.
The Framework Behind the Projects
Individual investments do not operate in isolation. The US-Australia framework has established coordination mechanisms to identify vulnerabilities, direct financing and accelerate delivery across the broader pipeline.
In March 2026, the two countries established the Critical Minerals Supply Security Response Group. The bilateral group coordinates geological mapping and streamlines permitting. It also advances recovery of minerals from waste streams and works to protect allied markets from unfair trade practices.
Australia’s A$1.2 billion Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve provided the offtake mechanism that enabled Arafura’s final investment decision at Nolans. It connects directly to Project Vault, the $12 billion US strategic minerals reserve. Project Vault is anchored by a $10 billion EXIM loan and approximately $2 billion in private capital. The two reserve structures provide guaranteed demand for critical minerals from allied projects. That demand reduces the revenue uncertainty that has historically stopped marginal projects before they reached construction.
Both reserves sit within a wider multinational framework. The Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement, known as FORGE, was launched by the Trump administration in February 2026. FORGE coordinates critical minerals trade, investment, financing and supply-chain security across allied nations. It extends the bilateral model established with Australia to include other partners.
What One Year Means
US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg acknowledged the pace of delivery at the framework anniversary. Building supply chains with trusted partners reduces coercive dependencies and strengthens the alliance, he said. The partnership delivers real benefits for American and Australian people and the companies that power their economies.
US Ambassador to Australia David Brat described the first year as a demonstration of how rapidly allies can act when they share expertise, commitment and trust. Together, the two countries are diversifying supply chains so no single nation can use critical minerals as leverage, he said.
Those statements reflect genuine progress. Two projects are in construction. The gallium facility addresses one of the minerals where China’s export controls have already disrupted markets. Nolans, if it delivers to schedule, would establish the only large-scale non-Chinese ore-to-oxide rare earths facility in the Southern Hemisphere.
What the Second Year Has to Deliver
The honest account of year one is that the framework moved faster from signing to groundbreaking than most comparable agreements have. The honest account of what remains is that most of the money announced is still at the letter of interest stage.
Converting letters of interest into signed loan agreements requires completed due diligence, satisfied credit conditions and finalised documentation. That process has historically taken longer than the political timeline around framework signings implies. For the projects in the pipeline — Ardea’s nickel, Tronox’s rare earth refinery, Northern Minerals’ heavy rare earths, Sunrise Syerston’s scandium — year two will be measured by how many progress from letters to binding agreements. And then how many of those binding agreements result in final investment decisions.
The framework architecture provides more structural support for that conversion than earlier critical minerals agreements offered. The bilateral reserve coordination, the EXIM and Export Finance Australia partnership, and the FORGE multilateral layer all help. Whether they prove sufficient will depend on project-level economics, permitting timelines and commodity prices. No bilateral agreement can guarantee any of those.
What the Industry Should Watch
Letter-to-loan conversion timelines. The $2.2 billion in EXIM letters of interest from the October 2025 signing, plus the April 2026 additions for Ardea and Tronox, represent the next phase of the framework’s financial deployment. The rate at which those letters progress to signed loan agreements over the next twelve months is the best forward indicator of the framework’s financing momentum.
Syerston’s conditions precedent. The $400 million conditional commitment to Sunrise Energy Metals is the most significant financing announced for the framework in the second half of 2026. The specific conditions — financial, legal and technical — must be satisfied before the loan can be finalised. Those conditions will determine whether scandium joins rare earths and gallium in the construction column by year two.
Nolans’ construction execution. Arafura has secured financing, offtakes and a final investment decision. The project now has to build. A 38-year operation designed to deliver 4-5% of global rare earths demand carries real construction and ramp-up risk. The next twelve months of progress at site will tell the market whether the financing architecture was enough.
The Wagerup gallium timeline. The Alcoa facility broke ground in August. Its construction period and first production date have not been publicly specified in detail. Gallium at 10% of global demand is a meaningful contribution to a market China currently dominates. The date that Wagerup ships its first tonne will be the framework’s clearest commercial milestone.
FORGE’s multilateral extension. The bilateral model between the US and Australia is the template. FORGE extends it to additional allied nations. Watching which countries join, which projects they bring and whether the mechanism generates new letters of interest or project financing will indicate whether the bilateral model can scale.
One Year In, One Project Model Established
The US-Australia Critical Minerals Framework has produced something most policy frameworks at this stage have not: two projects in the ground within twelve months of signing. The Alcoa Wagerup gallium facility and Arafura’s Nolans rare earths project are both real construction sites.
The billions in letters of interest are real too. They are also preliminary. The distance between a letter of interest and a commissioned plant is where critical minerals agreements have historically stalled.
Year two will be measured by how much of that distance closes.
Sources
US-AU Critical Minerals Pact Turns One — Metal Tech News
Alcoa Groundbreaking Press Release August 24, 2026 — Aluminium Council of Australia
Alcoa Breaks Ground at New Gallium Plant — Engineering News
Pentagon $174M Gallium Equity Investment — Supply Chain Digital
Arafura Nolans FID — Mining Magazine Australia
Arafura Quarterly Report June 2026 — InvestSmart/ASX
