The US State Department and energy security nonprofit SAFE announced a new partnership on Nov. 1 to further the country's critical minerals goals.
The partnership is known as the Minerals Investment Network for Vital Energy Security and Transition, or MINVEST. It will involve the creation of a network of private sector companies that will partner with the State Department in line with existing initiatives such as the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), Jose Fernandez, under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, said during a same-day event.
"Throughout the one year of the [MSP], we've made an effort to reach out to the private sector, to our companies, to our financial institutions, to our private equity shops in order to bring them into this effort," Fernandez said. "What SAFE [and the State Department] will do is ... we are going to create a network of private sector companies to partner with us to be able to take advantage of these opportunities [under the MSP]."
The MSP, formed in June 2022, is a collaboration between 13 countries and the EU aimed at accelerating the development of critical minerals supply chains. The members confirmed their support for 17 international critical minerals projects on Oct. 10 following the MSP's first principals' meeting in London.
SAFE's Center for Critical Minerals Strategy will be the main partner in the business network's creation, Robbie Diamond, founder, president and CEO of SAFE, said during the announcement event. The State Department said its Office of Global Partnerships will facilitate the partnership.
"We are excited to be the implementing partner for this private sector network," Diamond said. "The US, its trading partners and its allies — in order to maintain [a] competitive advantage, globally, and frankly, to maintain control of our economic and our geopolitical destinies — must work with the private sector to invest in the extraction, refining and recycling of ... critical minerals as well as in the manufacturing of the products they'll power."
Broadly, the MINVEST partnership will also "promote public-private dialogue and spur investment in strategic mining, processing, and recycling opportunities that adhere to high environmental, social, and governance standards," the State Department said in a Nov. 1 statement.
Fernandez and Diamond did not discuss which companies would be involved in the private sector network during the Nov. 1 event.
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