COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Greenland on Thursday handed a 30-year permit to a European Union-backed project that aims to mine molybdenum, a critical metal used in aerospace, energy and defence and on which China has imposed export controls.<\/p>\n
The resource-rich Arctic island has seen rising activity in its mining sector over the past month, after U.S. President Donald Trump expressed an interest in purchasing it earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The permit was granted to Toronto-listed Greenland Resources, a company backed by the European Raw Material Alliance, and holds the licence to the Malmbjerg project in eastern Greenland, the country’s government said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The open pit Malmbjerg mine can produce an average 32.8 million pounds of concentrated molybdenum per year, potentially supplying around 25% of Europe’s molybdenum use, according to the company.<\/p>\n
Molybdenum is a silvery-white metal used primarily to strengthen steel and improve its resistance to heat and corrosion, making it critical for industrial applications such defence and clean energy.<\/p>\n
China imposed export controls in early February on five metals, including molybdenum-related products, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff on Chinese goods.<\/p>\n
China accounted for about 40% of global molybdenum production last year, according to U.S. Geological Survey. Molybdenum is considered a critical mineral by both the European Union and the United States.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Greenland Resources signed off-take agreements with Finland’s Outokumpu and Italy’s Cogne Acciai Speciali.<\/p>\n
Although rich in natural resources, development of Greenland’s mining industry has been slow due to bureaucracy and lack of financing.<\/p>\n
However, Greenland last month granted an exploitation licence to a Danish-French mining group, while the EU this month picked 13 new critical material projects, including a graphite project in Greenland, to increase supply of metals and minerals.<\/p>\n
Last week, the U.S. government’s export credit agency said the company developing a large rare earth mine in Greenland, had met initial requirements to apply for a $120 million loan.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; editing by David Evans)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Greenland on Thursday handed a 30-year permit to a European Union-backed project that aims to mine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[80099,80102,2000,299,5187,80100,1699,366,80101,6202,47075],"class_list":{"0":"post-197422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-critical-metal","9":"tag-critical-mineral","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-raw-material-alliance","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-greenland","16":"tag-molybdenum","17":"tag-president-donald-trump","18":"tag-project"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114710651011722933","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}