EU Reviews Four Brazil Critical Mineral Projects | Rio Times
Key Points
—The European Union is now formally reviewing four Brazil critical mineral projects across lithium, rare earths and nickel, following the Hannover Messe bilateral cooperation agreement signed by President Lula and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on April 20.
—The projects under review include Serra Verde in Goiás, Viridis Mining’s Poços de Caldas rare earths site, Brazilian Nickel’s Piauí operation and AMG Lithium in Minas Gerais, with a separate St George Mining deal linking the Araxá project to the EU-funded PERMANET initiative.
—Brazil controls 94% of global niobium reserves, 23% of rare earths and the third-largest nickel reserves, positioning the country as the EU’s most significant alternative to Chinese supply under the Critical Raw Materials Act.
Brussels has just given the Hannover framework its first operational shape, putting four named Brazil critical mineral projects on the shortlist for European industrial supply.
The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the European Union is now formally analyzing four Brazil critical mineral projects, turning the political framework signed in Hannover on Monday into a concrete investment pipeline. The list covers rare earths, lithium and nickel — three of the five categories the European Commission identifies as strategic for the electric-vehicle and defence-industrial transitions.
The shortlist is the first tangible outcome of the Hannover Messe cooperation agreement signed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on April 20. Officials in both Brussels and Brasília had trailed the initiative for months, but the projects themselves only came into clear view this week.
The four Brazil critical mineral projects on Brussels’ shortlist
The first project is Serra Verde in Goiás, operated by the Singapore-based Energy Transition Minerals Fund and already producing commercial volumes of neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium — the four magnetic rare earths central to EV motors and wind-turbine generators. Serra Verde is on track for roughly 6,500 tonnes of rare-earth oxide output per year by 2027, and it is the first non-Chinese operation producing all four magnetic elements at scale.
The second is the Viridis Mining and Minerals rare-earths project in Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais. The Australian-listed company is planning first extraction by 2028 and has drawn partial financing from a French public development bank, according to earlier Brazilian government briefings. The Viridis project is one of the most advanced post-permitting rare-earth developments in Latin America.
The third is Brazilian Nickel’s Piauí operation, a heap-leach facility already producing class-one battery-grade nickel and targeted at European cathode chemistries. The fourth is AMG Lithium, part of the Netherlands-headquartered AMG group, which already extracts lithium in Minas Gerais and is expanding refining capacity under a Germany-funded partnership.
How the Hannover bilateral deal translates into project selection
The Hannover agreement is not itself a financing instrument. It is a declaration of intentions between Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, committing the two sides to joint R&D, scientist exchange and a new bilateral direct-financing mechanism to be elaborated before year-end.
What has changed with the shortlist is that the European side is now matching specific Brazilian projects to the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act framework, which requires the bloc to source at least 10% of its strategic raw materials domestically and no more than 65% from any single third country by 2030. Without Brazilian supply, the single-country cap is almost mechanically breached by Chinese rare-earth dominance.
Alongside the bilateral agreement, Spain’s Técnicas Reunidas has signed a memorandum of understanding with St George Mining to run processing tests on rare-earth samples from the Araxá project. Técnicas Reunidas leads PERMANET, the EU-funded consortium building Europe’s first integrated permanent-magnet value chain, and the Araxá MoU is designed to determine which intermediate or oxide product fits the European industrial route.
Brazil’s leverage: reserves, geography, and the US competition
The geological case for Brazil is unambiguous. The country holds 94% of global niobium reserves, 23% of rare earths, 26% of graphite and the world’s third-largest nickel reserves, according to the Brazilian Geological Service. In a US Geological Survey comparison, Brazil’s rare-earth reserves are roughly half the Chinese total and nearly twenty times larger than US domestic deposits.
The political case has also hardened this year. The Trump administration’s March Critical Minerals Ministerial committed over US$30 billion in letters of interest and direct investment for non-Brazilian projects, including a Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve explicitly designed to prioritise domestic and allied supply. Brazilian industry and government officials read that move as a US attempt to lock in preferential access without corresponding investment inside Brazil.
The European shortlist is therefore also a counter-move. Brasília has consistently said it wants value added inside Brazil — refining and intermediate processing, not just ore exports — and the Hannover financing structure is being built around that constraint. The EU’s willingness to work with processing partners like Técnicas Reunidas fits that Brazilian condition better than the US model does.
What to watch next on Brazil critical mineral projects
The Brazilian Congress still has the Política Nacional de Minerais Críticos e Estratégicos bill, PL 2.780, in committee. The legislation is intended to give Brazil’s strategic minerals sector a dedicated legal regime and to back a R$1 billion fund — equally split between the national development bank and Vale — for early-stage exploration. A second, larger R$5 billion fund for downstream refining and transformation is also in discussion.
The EU–Mercosur agreement, provisional entry into force on May 1, will also reshape the tariff landscape for Brazilian mineral exports. Brussels has committed to full and accelerated elimination of import tariffs on a wide list of critical minerals, including cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese and rare earths, and Brazil has preserved the right to apply export restrictions if Brasília decides local value addition requires protection.
For investors, the Brazil critical mineral projects story is now operational rather than aspirational. The next data points to watch are the bilateral financing mechanism announcement expected before year-end, the PL 2.780 committee vote, and whether the EU formally adds Serra Verde, Viridis, Brazilian Nickel or AMG Lithium to the list of Strategic Projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act.
Related coverage: Brazil–EU critical minerals task force at Hannover Messe • US rare-earth bid for Serra Verde in Goiás • Investing in Brazil: the 2026 guide