BNDES president Aloizio Mercadante separately proposed forming an alliance between the development bank, Vale, and Petrobras to advance critical minerals research, with particular emphasis on offshore mining. Mercadante positioned seabed mineral extraction as a future economic frontier for Brazil, leveraging Petrobras’s existing research on continental shelf deposits and Vale’s geological expertise. The bank has signaled capacity to deploy up to BRL 50 billion in financing and direct investment for critical minerals projects, with dozens of proposals currently under analysis.
The institutional moves occur as Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies approved Project Law 2780/2024 establishing a legal framework for critical minerals with incentive mechanisms and a government council to designate priority projects. A PT party proposal to create a state-owned enterprise for rare earth elements and implement production-sharing arrangements failed to advance during deliberations. The approved text now awaits Senate consideration amid industry lobbying to limit state authority provisions.
Governor Ronaldo Caiado of Goiás, a 2026 presidential pre-candidate, signed a cooperation agreement with the United States for rare earth mapping and research, preempting federal government action on bilateral minerals cooperation. The agreement follows engagement between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Brazilian state governments on critical minerals access, with Minas Gerais and Bahia also receiving outreach since April 2025. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro publicly characterized Brazil as the solution to U.S. dependence on Chinese critical mineral processing during a conservative conference in the United States.
The Ministry of Finance designated 17 sectors for Brazil’s emissions trading system with mining entering the second implementation phase scheduled for 2029. The regulatory structure positions critical minerals development within carbon market compliance frameworks as international coalitions formed by the United States, Japan, and European Union intensify efforts to reduce Chinese dominance in rare earth processing, which currently accounts for approximately 80 percent of global refining capacity.
This article was curated and published as part of our South American energy market coverage.
