In 1986, Spain joined what is now the EU. Olive oil flowed north. German cars flowed south. And in the hills south of Madrid, a thick bed of rare earth sand sat in the ground. No one touched it. For forty years, it was cheaper to buy from China.

That may have just changed. Osmond Resources, a small Australian miner, put out a scoping study last week for a project it calls Orión. It sits in Jaén, a rural part of southern Spain, about 235 km from Madrid. The plan is an underground room-and-pillar mine — the kind that leaves the surface mostly untouched — pulling up monazite, zircon, and titanium sands. The rare earths ride inside the monazite.

The numbers are hard to argue with. Post-tax net present value: $2.31 billion. Rate of return: 145%. Up-front cost: $299 million. Payback: six months. Those are not typos.

Here is why they work. Zircon and titanium earn enough on their own to cover the full cost of mining. The cash cost, after those credits, lands at negative $12.67 per tonne. Osmond would get its rare earths for free. The other metals pay the bill.

And this is not a token amount. The first phase would supply roughly 6% of the EU's 2030 NdPr oxide needs — the stuff in every EV motor and wind turbine. Each year, the mine would turn out 2,160 tonnes of NdPr oxide, 94 tonnes of dysprosium oxide, and 24 tonnes of terbium oxide. Heavy rare earths, from a mine in Europe. That has never happened.

Madrid took notice. Spain gave Osmond the maximum €250,000 grant under its national mineral-exploration program. Lab work for the next study phase is already running in Perth. The EU's new Critical Raw Materials Act tells member states to source more of their own supply. That hands the project a legal edge it would not have had two years ago.

There is a long road from a study to a working mine. Permits, money, local support, and a hundred small calls still need to go right. But the fact that a rare earth mine in Europe can pencil out at all is new. Five years ago, no one thought the numbers could work. Now they do. China's export controls changed the math for the whole world.

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Brazilian Critical Minerals (ASX: BCM) bought a 90% stake in Sais Nordeste, a magnesium sulphate plant in Bahia, Brazil, for a single Brazilian real — about 18 cents. Magnesium sulphate is the main leaching agent proposed for the in-situ recovery process BCM plans to use at its Ema Rare Earth Project in northern Brazil. The deal gives BCM enough reagent supply to cover half, and maybe all, of what Ema needs. That cuts its tie to Chinese chemical imports. The plant has been idle since February, so BCM will have to restart it. But you cannot argue with the price.

The U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund sealed its first critical minerals deal, worth approximately $30 million, according to Reuters. The fund was set up in April 2025 under the minerals agreement the two countries signed. It gives the U.S. first access to new Ukrainian mineral projects in exchange for future investment and military assistance. Ukraine has deposits of lithium, titanium, and several rare earth elements, though most are still in the ground. The $30 million is small next to the billions Washington has put into domestic rare earth projects. But it is the first real money through the door — and it opens a path for more.

China's rare earth exchanges reopened on October 8 after a seven-day shutdown for the National Day holiday. Trading resumed with thin volumes. That is normal after Golden Week. The bigger story is the two-market divide that defined Q3 and is not going away. Inside China, dysprosium oxide trades at $212 to $220 per kilogram. Outside, the same stuff costs $2,500 to $3,250 or more — it depends on who is selling and whether they can get an export license. Terbium tells the same story: about $1,000 per kilogram inside China versus $7,500 and up outside. The gap grew all quarter. Golden Week did nothing to close it. Western buyers are still paying seven to more than ten times what Chinese factories pay for the same material.

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Osmond Resources received the maximum €250,000 grant under Spain's national mineral-exploration program for its Orión critical minerals project. The company has started exploration drilling and is pursuing a Spanish secondary listing to broaden its investor base.

— Mining.com.au

A refinery study for Critical Metals Corp.'s planned Romanian joint venture projects $1.8 to $2.2 billion in annual revenue from 19 ultra-high-purity rare earth and critical mineral products. The company's European Lithium shareholder vote is set for October 22. If it passes, CRML acquires European Lithium Ltd. Shares rallied 5% on the refinery news.

— Rare Earth Exchanges

The Department of Energy put $134 million into two rare earth recycling demo plants in June, part of its Rare Earth Elements Demonstration Facility Program. The projects will pull rare earths from mine tailings, old electronics, and red mud. Cyclic Materials and other firms are also ramping plants. The total recycling market hit $587 million last year and is growing fast.

— DataM Intelligence via OpenPR

The Department of War awarded Lockheed Martin $58.6 billion for PAC-3 MSE production and RTX $20.7 billion for AMRAAM missiles under five-year deals. Combined, that is $79 billion in long-term munitions contracts. They lock in demand for antimony, a critical mineral used in ammo where the U.S. imports 91% of what it uses.

— Investing News Network