Conventional painted homes overlooking sea ice within the Previous Nuuk district close to the Sermitsiaq mountain in Nuuk, Greenland, on Thursday, April 3, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
A worldwide scramble to use the Arctic’s untapped assets seems to be kicking into overdrive.
In a push to interrupt China’s mineral dominance, nations all over the world are more and more turning to the thawing and sparsely populated northern polar area, searching for to grab its uncooked supplies and profit from new industrial commerce routes.
U.S. President Donald Trump, for instance, has repeatedly underscored the significance of Greenland, an unlimited Arctic territory, calling U.S. possession of the island an “absolute necessity” for financial and nationwide safety causes.
Canada has not too long ago sought to ramp up Arctic funding as a part of a push designed to unlock its useful resource potential, notably amid strained diplomatic ties with the U.S.
Russia, which has a sprawling Arctic shoreline, has lengthy acknowledged the area as a strategic precedence. Certainly, President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lauded the development of a brand new nuclear-powered icebreaker ship to navigate Arctic waters, saying “it is necessary to persistently strengthen Russia’s place” within the area.
“The Arctic is seen as a supply of numerous totally different uncooked supplies, not solely oil and fuel, however numerous strategic supplies and uncommon earths,” Marc Lanteigne, affiliate professor on the Arctic College of Norway in Tromso, advised CNBC by phone.
“Greenland, proper now, is a repository of numerous base metals, treasured metals, gem stones, uncommon earths, uranium … it is all there. The issue is that up till not too long ago, it was seen as fully unviable to truly mine them,” Lanteigne stated.
“However with local weather change and the flexibility to navigate the Arctic Ocean rather more steadily, particularly in the course of the summer time months, Greenland is beginning to be checked out rather more fastidiously as a possible different supply for lots of those strategic supplies to China.”
Greenland has been reworked by the local weather disaster. A serious evaluation of historic satellite tv for pc photographs, revealed final 12 months by researchers on the U.Okay.’s College of Leeds, confirmed components of the autonomous Danish territory’s ice sheet and glaciers have been changed by wetlands, areas of shrub and barren rock.
For mining firms, the most important ice loss has inadvertently made a few of the island’s strategic minerals extra accessible.
Tony Sage, CEO of Important Metals, which is creating one of many world’s largest uncommon earth belongings in southern Greenland, stated there was a notable upswing in investor curiosity in Greenland in latest months, notably since Trump returned to workplace and raised the prospect of seizing management of the territory.
“I keep in mind in his first time period, in round 2018 and 2019, he made an enormous track and dance concerning the strategic worth of uncommon earths in Greenland, so even again then,” Sage advised CNBC by phone.
Notion vs. actuality
Alongside Important Metals, mining and exploration firm Amaroq can also be working to use a few of Greenland’s assets. Amaroq CEO Eldur Olafsson stated the agency’s latest discovery of high-grade uncommon earths in southern Greenland “means quite a bit to us.”
The mission, which is able to take a number of years to develop, marked the agency’s first foray into the uncommon earths area because it expands its pursuits past gold and different strategic minerals.
Only one week after unveiling its uncommon earths discovery, the corporate on Nov. 11 confirmed industrial ranges of germanium and gallium at its west Greenland hub, a improvement that Olafsson stated might show to be much more strategically important.
“The germanium, gallium piece is, for my part, a lot larger information than folks perceive,” Olafsson advised CNBC by video name.
This aerial view exhibits icebergs floating within the waters crushed down by the solar with buildings within the background off Nuuk, Greenland, on March 11, 2025, on the day of Greenland, the autonomous Danish territory, legislative elections.
Odd Andersen | Afp | Getty Photos
Germanium and gallium are important elements to a variety of products, from electrical autos to semiconductors and army purposes.
China, which is the first world producer of those metals, imposed preliminary export controls on germanium and gallium in 2023, earlier than singling out the U.S. with an outright ban late final 12 months in response to curbs imposed on its chip sector by Washington. Beijing has since suspended its ban of gallium and germanium exports to the U.S., though the metals stay topic to restrictive measures.
“That may be a mineral that the U.S. and the European Union want now. The uncommon earths are being processed by Lynas and MP Supplies. That’s one thing that you could entry, I would not say simpler, however you possibly can entry it … Germanium and gallium, if you do not have them then that could be a huge drawback,” Olafsson stated.
“We now have a short-term resolution in mining phrases to mine zinc, lead, silver and germanium and gallium, whereas we’re then creating exporting the uncommon earths as properly.”
Olafsson stated it was necessary for the corporate to generate cashflow by means of its portfolio of gold and different strategic metals whereas it seeks to ship on its uncommon earths potential, noting that the uncommon earths market continues to be comparatively small.
Requested whether or not the race for the Arctic’s assets could possibly be in comparison with a gold rush, Lanteigne stated: “That is the place notion and actuality are likely to kick in.”
He added: “There was numerous dialogue a couple of rush to develop mineral assets in Greenland, for instance, however I can say having been there fairly just a few occasions that if you will arrange a mine then it’s essential herald actually the whole lot.”
Even in very best circumstances, Lanteigne stated logistical challenges, comparable to Greenland’s harsh local weather and distant panorama, means it might take 15 to twenty years earlier than firms begin to flip a severe revenue.
Arctic Sweden
It isn’t simply Greenland. The scramble for the Arctic’s minerals contains a few of the northernmost areas of Sweden, too.
State-owned mining agency LKAB is at present racing to develop considered one of Europe’s largest identified deposits of uncommon earths. The invention of the so-called Per Geijer deposit, which was introduced in 2023, sits in shut proximity to the agency’s huge iron ore mine within the Arctic metropolis of Kiruna.
Rain falls as a basic view taken on August 21, 2025 exhibits the LKAB iron ore mine and an indication bearing the corporate’s brand in Kiruna, northern Sweden.
Jonathan Nackstrand | Afp | Getty Photos
Niklas Johansson, senior vp public affairs and exterior relations at LKAB, stated the corporate is at present in dialogue with European lawmakers to make sure that will probably be economically viable to develop its assets.
“We have already obtained the fabric as much as the bottom. That is all been paid for by the iron ore. Nonetheless, it isn’t a provided that this can be a enterprise case. It seems like it’s for us in the mean time, nevertheless it’s not one thing that you simply’d say, ‘oh it is a no brainer, simply run for it,'” Johansson advised CNBC by phone.
“I additionally inform them that if it seems like this for us, who has many of the infrastructure and the whole lot in place, how do you suppose it should search for others in Europe?”
