The strongest development today is in Tunisia, where U.S. critical-minerals policy is moving beyond diplomacy and into the mechanics of an actual transaction.

A State Department programme is designed to mobilise more than US$100 million of U.S. private capital, secure a 30–40% American equity position in ASX-listed PhosCo, generate US$15–25 million of U.S. equipment exports and support 75–125 manufacturing jobs in the United States.

The target is not an undeveloped geological concept. PhosCo controls Gasaat, a 112km² phosphate project with a current JORC resource of 166.6Mt at 20.6% P₂O₅. More importantly for investors being asked to fund its next stage, 92% of that resource is now in the Measured and Indicated categories.

The scale of the U.S. ambition is clearer against the project's existing economics. Gasaat's 2022 scoping study estimated development capital of about US$170 million and a post-tax NPV10 of US$657 million. The study is now dated, but Washington is seeking to mobilise more than US$100 million around a project whose last published build estimate was only about US$170 million.

The comparison is not one-for-one. The American capital need not all become construction equity, and an updated scoping study due this quarter could materially change the capex. But it establishes how consequential the intervention could become.

Uganda is dealing with a different part of the same investment chain.

Blaze Minerals has agreed to acquire up to 90% of two tungsten projects and raised A$2.25 million as Kampala temporarily defers new mineral rights and examines the quality of tenure already sitting in its cadastre.

The government's own numbers explain why. As at 30 June, Uganda had 497 exploration licences but only five large-scale mining licences, alongside 212 prospecting licences and smaller numbers of medium, small-scale and artisanal mining rights.

That does not mean hundreds of exploration licences should have become mines. Exploration is inherently attritional. But the imbalance helps explain why a government seeking more investment is also asking whether mineral rights are being actively developed or merely held.

These are not developments of equal scale. Tunisia leads because Washington is explicitly trying to influence the ownership, financing, procurement and eventual commercial relationships around a named African mineral developer. Uganda is earlier-stage, testing whether tighter control over mineral tenure can coexist with the foreign exploration capital it still needs.

The point connecting them is narrower but important: governments are intervening increasingly early in the structures through which mineral projects become investable.

In Tunisia, Washington wants influence over the cap table before the mine is built.

In Uganda, Kampala is deciding which mineral rights deserve to remain on the path towards a mine at all.

The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and U.S. Embassy Tunis envisage one award of US$1 million to US$1.536 million over 18 to 24 months.

Its objectives extend far beyond the size of that award.

The programme seeks to mobilise more than US$100 million of U.S. private capital, secure a 30–40% American position in PhosCo, generate US$15–25 million of U.S. equipment exports and support 75–125 American manufacturing jobs.

The work includes identifying investors, supporting due diligence, structuring joint ventures and offtakes, and engaging financing institutions including the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Its framing is explicitly oriented towards trade over aid.

Gasaat's current resource is 166.6Mt at 20.6% P₂O₅, up from roughly 146Mt after maiden resources at KM and SAB added 20.2Mt. Some 92% of the enlarged resource is Measured and Indicated.

The geological improvement is arriving alongside a processing change.

First-pass flotation testing at KM produced concentrate grading 29.5% to 31.4% P₂O₅ at recoveries of 75.1% to 83.7%. PhosCo says a single-stage flotation circuit could eliminate three silica-flotation stages, reducing processing complexity and potentially lowering both capital and operating costs.

Those results will feed into an updated scoping study targeted for Q3 2026, meaning revised project economics are due this month if the company's timetable holds.

The historical benchmark is the December 2022 study: 1.5Mt of concentrate annually over 46 years, approximately US$169.5 million of development capital and a US$657 million post-tax NPV10.

Geography note: PhosCo uses “Northern Phosphate Basin” for the project area. Some Tunisian coverage uses Kasserine or Gafsa basin terminology.

The programme makes sense against a phosphate market that has recently been reminded how geopolitical its supply chain can become.

China restricted phosphate-fertiliser exports through August 2026, tightening an already stressed international market. Normal export declarations were expected to resume from 1 September, but the episode demonstrated how quickly a major source of internationally traded phosphate can be removed.

Tunisia offers Mediterranean access without dependence on Gulf shipping lanes. Gasaat lies about 35km from a railhead connecting towards La Goulette and Radès.

Washington is therefore not pursuing phosphate in the abstract. It is trying to establish commercial influence around a Mediterranean source while its ownership, financing and supply relationships are still being formed.

The domestic U.S. jobs target makes that logic unusually transparent. American industrial employment is part of the programme's measure of success.

The US$1.5 million award is best understood as transaction-development capital.

It does not build Gasaat. It is intended to help determine who provides the much larger capital pool, what rights that capital receives, whose equipment the project buys and where future product may flow.

And Washington is not the first strategic institution into the structure.

PhosCo, Tunisia's government and the EBRD entered a non-binding MoU in November 2024. EBRD later awarded €1 million to PhosCo subsidiary Himilco and received arrangements for 150 million options exercisable at A$0.05. Full exercise would represent A$7.5 million of investment, subject to EBRD's discretion, due diligence and other conditions.

That financing sequence now runs towards an imminent project reset. If the new scoping study lowers capex or operating costs because of the enlarged, higher-confidence resource and simplified flowsheet, Washington may be attempting to assemble strategic capital just as the economic proposition improves.

The next important event is therefore not another memorandum. It is the first U.S.-linked transaction and the terms on which it enters.

Sources: U.S. State Department programme documentation | PhosCo Gasaat project and current resource | S&P Global on China's 2026 phosphate export restrictions

Blaze Minerals has entered a binding agreement to acquire up to 90% of the Bahati and Buyaga tungsten projects in Uganda.

Bahati, EL00778, covers about 43km² in the Karagwe-Ankole Belt. Buyaga, EL00780, covers roughly 250km² and surrounds the excised historical Buyaga mine.

Blaze reports due-diligence channel samples from historical Bahati workings including 1 metre at 20.78% WO₃ and 0.8 metres at 20.22% WO₃.

These are not drilling results or a mineral resource. Whether the grades have economic significance depends on modern exploration establishing geometry, continuity and scale.

The acquisition involves staged payments totalling approximately US$1.625 million. Blaze has also secured an A$2.25 million placement to fund acquisition costs and exploration and proposes a 20-for-1 share consolidation.

The transaction arrives during a deliberate regulatory reset.

Energy and Mineral Development Minister Monica Musenero Masanza, appointed earlier this year, announced a one-month deferment of new mineral licences and exploration rights on 28 August while government reviews existing rights, contested boundaries, licence performance and its mining cadastre.

This is not an isolated intervention from a minister suddenly discovering a problem. At her 1 June appearance before Parliament's Appointments Committee, Musenero identified informality and weak regulation in minerals as priorities for her new portfolio.

The scale of the tenure system is now visible. Commissioner of Mines Agnes Alaba said Uganda had, at 30 June:

212 prospecting licences, 497 exploration licences, five large-scale mining licences, 38 medium-scale, 18 small-scale, three artisanal, three smelting, six refining, five processing and 205 dealer licences.

Musenero has placed the reset inside Uganda's wider Tenfold Growth Strategy, which targets an economy of approximately US$500 billion by 2040. Her stated test for the licensing framework is whether it attracts credible and capable investors, develops resources responsibly and promotes value addition.

The 497 exploration licences against five large-scale mining licences is not proof of widespread warehousing. Exploration licences fail for legitimate geological, financing and commercial reasons.

But it does explain the policy concern.

Uganda's objective should not be to maximise the number of licences in its cadastre. It should be to maximise the number of credible mineral programmes capable of attracting progressively larger amounts of risk capital.

That makes Blaze a useful early test.

If the company completes due diligence, secures clean administrative status and begins systematic exploration, it becomes the type of capital Musenero says the new system is supposed to favour.

The harder test is whether Uganda can remove inactive or abusive tenure while increasing confidence for those willing to spend money on the ground.

A cadastre becomes valuable to investors not when it contains more licences, but when the rights inside it are credible enough to finance.

Sources: Blaze Minerals: Acquisition of High-Grade Tungsten Projects, Uganda | Uganda licensing reset and licence portfolio

Tunisia: The State Department award; the identity of the implementing partner; the first named U.S. investor; whether the 30–40% target involves new PhosCo equity, existing shares, project-level capital or a combination; and any DFC role.

Gasaat: The Q3 2026 updated scoping study is now immediate. Watch particularly for revised development capex, operating costs, mine sequencing and the economic impact of the simplified flotation circuit and new KM and SAB resources.

EBRD: Whether it exercises its A$0.05 PhosCo options after the updated study and, if so, how that investment interacts with the much larger U.S. capital initiative.

Uganda: What happens when the 30-day review concludes. Licence cancellations, new performance requirements, cadastre changes or revised administrative procedures will show how substantive the reset is.

Blaze: Completion of due diligence, confirmation of licence status and the first modern drilling at Bahati. The drill bit, rather than historical channel grades, will determine whether the acquisition becomes material.

This section identifies listed companies with exposure to the commodities and jurisdictions covered above, so that readers can compare how the same country or sector development may affect different operators. It covers named participants in today's stories first, then other listed companies active in the same jurisdiction on the same commodity.

Exposure varies enormously in both size and directness, and several of the most important operators in these jurisdictions are private or state-owned and therefore absent. Inclusion is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

The direct listed exposure to Gasaat and Sekarna and the company whose ownership the U.S. programme explicitly seeks to influence. The immediate catalysts are the updated Gasaat scoping study, strategic-equity process and EBRD funding pathway.

A material second-order exposure through PhosCo. Lion's last substantial-holder filing, dated 26 February 2026, reported 76,669,011 PhosCo shares and 14.61% voting power. The share count had not changed from its previous notice; its percentage fell because PhosCo issued shares to other investors.

A future 30–40% U.S. shareholder could therefore materially alter PhosCo's ownership balance and the relative position of existing substantial holders.

The direct listed exposure to Bahati and Buyaga. Blaze also already holds other Ugandan critical-minerals interests through Ntungamo and Mityana. Investors should watch transaction completion, administrative certainty around the licences, funding dilution and whether modern exploration validates the historical tungsten grades.