OD6 accepted into US Defense Industrial Base Consortium
Our US critical minerals Investment OD6 Metals (ASX: OD6) just got accepted into the US Defense Industrial Base Consortium (DIBC).
OD6 is developing a flurospar asset in Nevada USA.
The USA remains a 100% net import reliant for flurospar, with more than 60% of global supply coming from China.
The DIBC is an industry-government consortium set up to strengthen the US defence industrial base and is made up of 2,091 organisations. Looks like OD6 is already on the website directory. (source)
Membership of the DIBC gives OD6 greater access to US government funding solicitations, partnering opportunities and direct engagement across government and industry.
(source)
"Strategic and Critical Materials" is one of the DIBC's named sectors, so we think that this directly aligns with OD6's Nevada fluorspar project and further potential opportunities.
In February the DIBC put out a dedicated solicitation for domestic critical minerals processing, seeking proposals from companies to apply for funding:
(source)
OD6 is now closer to this specific funding opportunity, and given it has hinted at low capex, minimal refining startup opportunities, it may not need all that much funding to get off the ground.
We ran through a while back what we think this a quick production start up could roughly look like, which of course assumes the drill bit confirms some mineralised hits.
We are hoping OD6 can follow ~A$80M capped Ares Strategic Mining, which landed a US Government contract worth up to US$250M for its Nevada fluorspar project. (source)
(no guarantees of course…)
The membership announced today builds on OD6's SAM.gov registration earlier this month.
OD6 also lodged drill permits and began FAST-41 engagement earlier this month, which we covered here: OD6 lodges drill permits and begins FAST-41 engagement for its Nevada fluorspar project
OD6’s drill targets
OD6 has completed comprehensive surface exploration, revealing multiple zones of mineralisation outcropping at surface, which could be linked underground.
We have written about the “iceberg” theory before - what may from the surface look like a few isolated outcrops, could be linked underground:
(source)
OD6 is planning drilling to test the new zone AND both of the linking corridors:
(source)
What is fluorspar and why it matters
Fluorspar is one of the more niche critical minerals that hasn’t quite received any mainstream attention YET.
However in 2024, fluorspar was listed as one of the nine materials with the highest shortfall risk for the US military in a major conflict scenario. (source)
(like we are in now)
Two explicit signals of fluorspar demand from US agencies have come from:
- The Department of War, through the Ares’ US$250M supply contract we mentioned above, (source) and;
- The US Defence Logistics Agency (DLA) - when it included fluorspar on its list of critical minerals that are a priority for sourcing in January this year. (source)
On the 20th of July Trump signed an Executive Order to force defence contractors to explore all avenues before buying critical minerals from China. (Here is the full EO for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet)
And set a deadline for “exploring all avenues” of 1st January 2027.
We think that the 1st of January 2027 deadline (and the threat of lost contracts) will mean capital starts flying around for any projects that have any realistic pathway to producing a critical mineral in the US.
We covered the drill permits being lodged here: OD6 lodges drill permits and begins FAST-41 engagement for its Nevada fluorspar project.
What's next for OD6?
🔄 Drill permit application
A couple of weeks ago OD6 officially submitted the paperwork that, once approved, will allow it to do the first modern drilling (and bulk sampling) at the project since the 1950s.
The “Plan of Operations” is for up to 139 drill pad locations across priority target areas:
(source)
Milestones:
- ✅ Plan of Operations submitted to the US Forest Service
- 🔄 Plan of operations approved
- 🔲 Drill program confirmed and drilling contractor secured
- 🔲 Drill program commenced
🔄 Target generation for US fluorspar project
We want to see OD6 sample in and around the old workings on its project, run some geophysics and generate high priority drill targets ahead of its maiden drilling program.
Milestones:
- ✅ Rock chips
- ✅ Channel sampling
- ✅ Historic drill results
- ✅ Digitisation of scanned paper maps and cross-sections into a 3D geological model
- ✅ Soil/channel sampling
- 🔲 Geophysics
- ✅ Drill targets generated
