EU to announce investments in five Brazil-based miners by March

Brazil’s government expects European Union–linked investors to announce stakes in five mining companies operating in Brazil by late March, in a move tied to the bloc’s push to secure supplies of critical minerals, according to Brazilian officials.

The announcement is expected to align with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s interest in formalizing a partnership with Brazil to guarantee access to strategic minerals for Europe, officials said.

Ana Paula Repezza, business director at ApexBrasil, Brazil’s trade and investment promotion agency, said European interest is focused on companies producing rare earths, nickel, lithium and manganese—materials considered essential for electric vehicle manufacturing, a cornerstone of the EU’s decarbonization strategy for transport.

The announcement is slated for March 24 during an ApexBrasil forum on investment relations between Brazil and the EU. Repezza declined to name the companies expected to receive funding.

According to reporting by Folha de S.Paulo, one of the companies is Viridis, listed on the Sydney exchange but controlled by a Brazilian investment fund. Viridis plans to extract rare earth elements in southern Minas Gerais state starting in 2028 and has held regular talks with European investors. France’s state-backed export bank currently accounts for about half of the company’s outstanding debt used to advance the project.

Other potential recipients include Brazilian Nickel, which plans to operate in Piauí state, and AMG Lithium, already producing lithium in Minas Gerais. Both companies have taken part in recent ApexBrasil events with European investors. AMG Lithium operates a lithium processing plant in Germany and, in December, secured 36 million euros from a German government-backed fund to expand its European operations.

Repezza said the EU has expressed a preference for mineral processing and refining to take place in Brazil, in line with the position defended by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. However, she stressed that there are no legal requirements mandating local processing, noting that such conditions are largely market-driven.

“It makes sense for the EU to support and invest in processing critical minerals in Brazil because extraction and processing are energy-intensive, and Brazil has one of the cleanest electricity matrices in the world, and therefore a much lower carbon footprint,” Repezza said.

Negotiations between Brazil and the EU follow a different path from the U.S. approach to critical minerals. Washington typically seeks contractual guarantees of supply and preferential access, and in some cases engages directly with mining companies. By contrast, the European model relies more on coordination and facilitation by governments.

According to Repezza, Brazil’s role has been to steer investment toward projects deemed strategic for the country, taking into account not only project maturity but also regional development considerations.

“We are accelerating EU investment while respecting public policies aimed at strengthening supply chains and advancing Brazil’s industrialization,” she said.

The talks also involve Brazil’s ministries of Mines and Energy; Science, Technology and Innovation; Development, Industry, Trade and Services; as well as development bank BNDES.

Momentum could be reinforced by the EU–Mercosur trade agreement, which will lower import tariffs on some critical minerals, whether shipped in raw or processed form. The deal was signed on Saturday and its legal review was approved by the European Parliament earlier this week.

Von der Leyen highlighted Europe’s interest in Brazilian minerals during remarks celebrating the trade agreement. “Europe and Brazil are moving toward a very important political agreement on critical minerals, which will define the terms of our cooperation in joint investments in lithium, nickel and rare earths,” she said, calling the partnership key to the EU’s energy and digital transitions.

The EU strategy is anchored in the ReSourceEU initiative, which aims to cut the bloc’s dependence on critical mineral imports by up to 50% by 2029. To that end, European investors are prepared to deploy up to 3 billion euros by the end of this year, with Brazil frequently cited in EU documents as a central partner in achieving that goal.

Source: Folha de S. Paulo

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