Shares of small-cap mining company Nova Minerals (NVA) gained more than 55% in the first hour of the trading session on Tuesday after briefly doubling before the open following an announcement from the company of a request from the Trump administration to prepare briefs on one of its gold (GC=F) and minerals extraction sites.
Australia-based Nova Minerals announced in a press release early Tuesday morning that the US ambassador to Australia has asked the company to prepare a briefing on the miner’s Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project in Alaska ahead of an upcoming meeting between President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The site is “among the world’s largest undeveloped gold assets,” according to Nova Minerals.
Fellow Aussie mining companies Fortescue Metals Group (FVJ.SG) and Australian Mines (AMSLF) and multinational British-Australian giant Rio Tinto (RIO) were trading up in sympathy following the news.
The mining site, roughly 100 miles northwest of Anchorage, Alaska, is projected to hold more than 9.9 million ounces of gold across its four most promising deposits, which would be worth roughly $41 billion at Tuesday morning’s gold price of $4,140 per troy ounce.
Nova Minerals also announced at the beginning of October that the Department of Defense made a $43.4 million investment in a wholly owned subsidiary of the company to fund the development of domestic antimony sources.
The announcement is one more in a line of recent developments in the critical minerals and metals sector, as the Trump administration has ratcheted up its focus on the US domestic supply chain of such materials.
Recent moves include investments in a host of mining companies, including MP Materials (MP), which operates the only operational rare earth mine in the US; Trilogy Metals (TMQ), which holds a 50% stake in a major mineral mining project under development in Alaska; and Lithium Americas (LAC), which is developing what is likely to be the largest lithium (LTH=F) mine in the Western Hemisphere when it commences operations.
MP Materials and Trilogy Metals are up more than 500% and more than 490%, respectively, on the year, while Lithium Americas is up more than 180%.
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The Trump administration’s focus on the critical minerals supply chain has stepped increasingly into the spotlight as it trades blows with Beijing in an ongoing trade war over the materials, which are critically important to industries such as electric vehicles and weapons systems development.