US signs MOUs on Central Asian critical minerals, secures stake in strategic deposit

Several government-to-government and company agreements on critical minerals, including rare and rare earth metals, were signed during a Nov. 6 meeting of the five Central Asian state leaders with US President Donald Trump.

Hosting the C5+1 summit in Washington, Trump touted "tremendous amounts of trade ... done just in the last little while" with the Central Asian nations, but said he was committed to making America's partnership with each of these countries stronger than ever.

Trump said their location "in the heart of Eurasia gives them incredible importance and unbelievable potential. It happens to be an extremely wealthy region, too."

US trade with Kazakhstan has doubled in recent years and is approaching $5 billion, while Uzbekistan's trade with the US has increased fourfold to almost $1 billion, the presidents of the two Central Asian countries said in their summit speeches.

The US and Kazakhstan signed a government-to-government memorandum of understanding on critical minerals, according to a Nov. 7 note by Kazakhstan's Ministry of Industry and Construction.

Severnyi Katpar to produce 12,000 mt/year of tungsten

US mining-focused investment firm Cove Capital and Kazakh state mining company Tau-Ken Samruk have inaugurated a Severnyi Katpar joint venture that will develop adjacent tungsten-molybdenum mining projects -- the Upper Kairakty (defined by the Kazakh government as strategic) and North Katpar.

The two assets combined hold 755 million mt of tungsten ore in measured, indicated in inferred categories containing 854,000 mt of tungsten trioxide, according to the information on the Tau-Ken Samruk website.

The joint venture has a planned output of 12,000 metric tons/year, the equivalent of 15% of current global production, and a resource base that supports 50+ years of operation, Pini Althaus, managing partner at Cove Capital, said in a LinkedIn post Nov. 7.

Kazakhstan, which already meets nearly 25% of US uranium demand, according to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is now poised to provide the US with tungsten, an essential defense and industrial mineral, for decades to come.

"With China controlling over 80% of the tungsten market and tightening export controls on the US earlier this year, this project is about resilience," said Althaus.

US to expand presence in Uzbekistan

Overall, the C5+1 summit resulted in $17 billion worth of deals between Kazakh and US companies, according to a Nov. 7 statement published on the Kazakhstan president's website.

The Uzbek mission signed two agreements with US parties to cooperate on the extraction of rare metals and rare earth elements: one between the country's geology ministry and Denali Exploration Group, and another between the Reconstruction and Development Fund of Uzbekistan and Re Element Technologies, according to the website of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Uzbekistan is also seeking access to US technologies to enhance its mining and processing of uranium, copper, tungsten, molybdenum and graphite.

While the US administration focused on critical minerals -- which Trump deemed as "one of the key items on [the summit] agenda" -- a cross-cutting theme for Central Asian leaders was to seek investment and co-operation in energy and transport, with the latter critically important given that three of the five states are landlocked.

Landlocked states seek role as transit centers for trade

Uzbekistan plans to spend $12 billion through 2030 to modernize roads, railways, terminals and airports, and to develop an energy system where more than half of electricity -- about 18-20 GW -- will come from renewable sources, according to the presidential website's coverage of the C5+1 summit.

Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov expressed hope that relations with the US would facilitate the development of the country's hydropower, logistics and digital economy. Kyrgyzstan is poised to offer substantial investment opportunities in these areas, Japarov said in his address to Trump, adding that Kyrgyzstan's hydropower potential exceeds 140 billion kWh/year, yet only about 15% of it is used.

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon also highlighted his country's significant hydropower resources, which could be harnessed to generate green energy, including for export. He said Tajikistan also ranks second in the world in terms of production of metallic antimony, "which the US is deeply interested in, and we have a brilliant cooperation on this." In 2024, Tajikistan exported 17,000 mt of antimony, and the metal accounted for 97% of the country's total exports to the US, Rahmon said.

If these visions are backed by investment strategies and projects, they are expected to significantly boost demand for various metals in these countries.