KB News Desk
Posco International is expanding into Brazil’s rare earth market, partnering with a mineral exploration company to secure and diversify its critical minerals supply chain, the company said Wednesday.
The trading and energy arm of Posco Group signed a memorandum of understanding with Meteoric Resources, an Australia-based rare earth developer, to secure a stable supply of rare earth materials, part of a wider effort to reduce reliance on any single country for minerals tied to national security and future industries
The agreement covers negotiations toward a long-term purchase contract, an accompanying equity investment and a definitive agreement on the broader project.
Meteoric Resources will supply rare earth intermediate materials produced at its Caldeira project in Minas Gerais, Brazil, while Posco International plans to process the material into rare earth oxides through its refining operations, supplying major permanent magnet manufacturers in Korea and abroad.
“Combining Posco Group’s integrated rare earth value chain with Brazil’s reserves, the world’s second-largest, will help stabilize Korea’s supply of materials essential to the new mobility industry and strengthen the group’s future growth,” said Posco Group Chair Chang In-hwa.
The deal builds on the group’s “triple-core” business structure, organized around industrial resources such as steel, strategic resources including lithium and rare earths, and energy resources such as liquefied natural gas and renewables.
Posco Group has already signed rare earth magnet supply contracts with global automakers in North America and Europe for electric vehicle drive motors, and plans to link Brazilian-sourced raw materials to those supply chains.
In its strategic resources business, the group has invested early in lithium assets, including Argentina’s Hombre Muerto salt flat and the Wodgina and Mt. Marion lithium mines in Australia. It also signed a critical minerals cooperation agreement with Mongolia’s Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund in July.
