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Utah pitches critical minerals sector to Gulf investors as US races to cut reliance on China
American state holds 50 of 60 minerals on Washington’s critical list, but mining chief says Middle East capital has so far stayed on the sidelines
- PUBLISHED: Sun 5 Jul 2026, 9:09 AM
Utah is positioning itself as a frontline state in America’s push for mineral independence, with officials actively courting Gulf sovereign wealth funds and investors to help fund a sector which has so far attracted little Middle East capital despite vast untapped potential.
Brian Somers, president of the Utah Mining Association, said the state holds 50 of the 60 minerals designated “critical” by the US Department of the Interior, but acknowledged that the bulk of foreign investment in its mines has historically come from Australia and Canada rather than the Gulf.
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“We haven’t seen a lot of investment from the Middle East in particular. We do have a few service companies that have either Middle Eastern investors or Middle Eastern ownership, but in the actual mining operations, we haven't seen as much of that,” he told Khaleej Times in an interview in Salt Lake City, Utah, recently.
A 160-year-old industry facing a new urgency
Utah’s mining sector traces back to 1863, when the state’s first commercial mining district was opened at Bingham Canyon and it is still the largest and most productive site today. The state’s mineral wealth has historically extended well beyond hard-rock mining, ranging from coal and uranium to silver and industrial minerals, giving it a more diversified base than neighbouring Nevada, which Somers said is “almost exclusively gold and silver.”
That history has taken on new strategic weight amid Washington’s efforts to reduce reliance on Chinese-controlled supply chains. According to the US Geological Survey’s annual Mineral Commodity Summaries, the US is more than 50 per cent import-dependent on 52 mineral commodities, and 100 per cent dependent on 16 of them – with China the leading import source for many.
Somers cited rare earth elements as a stark example: a single F-35 fighter jet requires roughly 920 pounds of rare earths, with destroyers and submarines needing substantially more. “If we don't have control of these supply chains, that obviously creates a national security risk for us,” he said, adding that mineral leverage had already shaped the dynamics of recent US-China trade negotiations.
Where Utah already leads
Utah currently produces around 80 per cent of the world’s beryllium, and is home to Rio Tinto Kennecott, one of the largest copper mines globally, which also yields lead, platinum, palladium, silver and tellurium as by-products of its copper refining process.
The state is also seeing a wave of new projects in germanium, gallium, fluorspar, antimony, tungsten, lithium, potash and uranium, alongside an unconventional source: a clay deposit near Utah Lake originally mined for silicon that has since proven rich in critical minerals.
The permitting problem – and a path around it
A central obstacle, Somers said, is that taking a mine from greenfield site to production averages 29 years in the US, according to S&P Global – a timeline he called unworkable. Utah’s strategy is therefore to expand output at already-permitted operations such as Rio Tinto Kennecott rather than start from scratch, alongside pushing for faster federal permitting.
To address the gap between lab-scale research and full industrial production, Utah recently passed legislation establishing what it calls the “Mine Center” – short for Minerals for Industrial, National and Economic Security – a planned test-bed facility for scaling up mineral processing technology to industrial volumes. Somers said no comparable facility currently exists in the US; Rio Tinto, for instance, has had to send feedstock to Canada for similar industrial-scale testing.
“This is sort of an innovation lab... where you can come in and try new mineral processing technology and get it up to the scale you need,” Somers said. An RFP to build and operate the facility is expected within months, with state funding already allocated, though Somers said federal investment would be needed to scale it to a national facility processing up to 100 tonnes a day.
The investment gap Gulf capital could fill
Somers said large sovereign wealth funds and private equity investors typically want projects “de-risked” before committing capital – a mismatch given that mineral processing, unlike mining itself, is not standardised and often requires bespoke testing for each feedstock.
He said the Mine Center, along with the state’s newly formed Critical Minerals Council, was designed partly to close that gap and give investors greater confidence.
He pointed to the scale of capital required, noting major new processing facilities can carry price tags reaching ten figures.
“We’re going to need foreign direct investment to help make those work,” he said, adding that the state was also open to structuring deals so foreign partners secure off-take rights – guaranteed future supply – in exchange for investment, addressing supply chain concerns for allied countries as well as the US.
Examples of recent foreign tie-ups include a South Korean company’s investment in a Utah lithium operation in partnership with an Australian producer, and a Japanese company's memorandum of understanding – backed by Japan’s sovereign investment fund – to build a tungsten processing furnace in the state.
