The US government backed Project Vault is preparing to issue up to 1 billion dollars in loans to American manufacturers seeking critical minerals, VaultCo executive chairman Brett Lambert told Bloomberg, in what would be the stockpile programme’s first financing round for end users. VaultCo, the entity managing the initiative, is in discussions with more than 70 companies across the critical minerals supply chain, and the first tranche is expected to cover more than a dozen original equipment manufacturers, with another group of similar size to follow.
Project Vault was launched in February as an independently governed public-private partnership, backed by a 10 billion dollar loan from the US Export-Import Bank and nearly 2 billion dollars in private investment. Commodity traders Glencore and Mercuria have committed 500 million dollars each, and Mercuria has already delivered 12,000 tonnes of copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo into the reserve.
The design is the point. Unlike the National Defense Stockpile, which holds predetermined inventories for defence needs, Project Vault is built around manufacturers’ specific requirements. Companies have requested not only raw metals but specialised magnets, powders and alloys tailored to their production lines, and participants commit to buying the stored material later at agreed prices. Lambert said recipients would not be publicly identified at this stage, although the types of minerals requested would be disclosed.
The copper delivery shows where the supply will come from. US imports of Congolese copper reached a record 53,290 tonnes in July, as buyers accelerated shipments on competitive prices and tariff concerns. For miners, the Vault is a new, government financed buyer of last resort sitting inside the US market, and its first loan round will show whether that demand reaches processed materials, where Chinese control is strongest, or stays in widely traded base metals.