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Glencore has been selected as a founding partner of VaultCo, the public-private partnership being established to build a strategic critical minerals reserve for US industry, with the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) providing $500 million in financing to support the Swiss miner and commodities trader’s role.

The agreement strengthens Glencore’s increasingly close relationship with Washington as the US seeks to secure supplies of minerals considered strategically important to its industrial base.

Under the arrangement, Glencore will source, procure and deliver critical minerals and base metals into the reserve, combining EXIM’s financing capacity with Glencore’s global sourcing, trading and logistics network.

Glencore brings global supply network to US reserve

VaultCo is the vehicle implementing Project Vault, which was announced by EXIM in February 2026. The broader initiative has access to up to $10 billion in EXIM financing, alongside nearly $2 billion in private-sector investment, to establish a US Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve at facilities across the country.

The model is designed to give US manufacturers access to raw materials during periods of supply disruption, while supporting domestic production and processing. For Glencore, the partnership plays directly to its position as both a producer and one of the world's major commodity marketers.

“VaultCo is an innovative approach to strengthening supply chain resilience,” said Jyothish George, Glencore’s head of marketing for metals and bulks. “We are pleased to be partnering with the U.S. Export-Import Bank and VaultCo to support critical minerals security and help ensure American industry has access to the materials it needs.”

George said Glencore’s participation reflected its longstanding role connecting global production with industrial consumers and its commitment to more resilient and diversified critical-minerals supply chains. 

VaultCo executive chair Brett Lambert framed the initiative in explicitly strategic terms. “Mineral security is national security.”

Lambert added that VaultCo was intended to ensure the US industrial base had access to the critical minerals required to manufacture products used by American consumers.

Cobalt provides an early test case

Glencore's involvement in Project Vault predates the formal launch of VaultCo.

Earlier this year, the company agreed to acquire almost 2,000 tonnes of cobalt for about $115 million, with the material expected to be sold to the US government under Project Vault. The transaction provided an early example of how Glencore's trading capabilities could be used to build strategic inventories for the US market.

Cobalt is particularly relevant to Glencore's position in the critical-minerals supply chain because of its significant production base in the DRC. Glencore's KCC and Mutanda operations produced a combined 33.5 kt of contained cobalt in 2025, alongside 247.8 kt of copper metal.

The company reported that its DRC operations, together with other assets, helped drive a sharp increase in second-half copper production in 2025, with H2 copper production exceeding 500 kt.

DRC assets increasingly connected to US mineral security

Glencore's VaultCo agreement comes against a broader expansion of US engagement with its African critical-minerals portfolio. In February, Glencore and the US-backed Orion Critical Mineral Consortium signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding covering the potential sale of a 40% stake in Glencore's interests in KCC and Mutanda.

The proposed transaction values the two operations at a combined enterprise value of about $9 billion. If completed, Orion CMC would have rights relating to the sale of its share of production to nominated buyers, in line with the US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement.

The proposed deal also provides for Glencore and Orion to explore opportunities to expand and develop the DRC operations, as well as potentially pursue additional critical-minerals projects in the DRC and the wider African copper belt.

That gives Glencore a potentially broader role in the US strategy: not only supplying material through global commodity markets but also connecting US-backed capital with major copper and cobalt production in Africa.

Strategic stockpiling meets commodity trading

The structure of VaultCo also highlights the changing role of commodity traders in critical-minerals security.

Project Vault was initially designed around the combination of government-backed financing, industrial demand and private-sector suppliers. EXIM describes the model as a way of allowing manufacturers to absorb supply shocks while reducing dependence on foreign-controlled supply chains.

Glencore and Mercuria became the first participants in VaultCo announced in September, with the two commodity groups collectively bringing $1 billion of sourcing capacity to the initiative, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

CSIS analyst Gracelin Baskaran wrote that the entry of the two commodity traders marked a shift for Project Vault from its initial financing concept towards implementation, while raising the practical question of how the US can turn financing commitments into an operational reserve capable of protecting manufacturers from supply disruptions.

For Glencore, that question is closely linked to the company's distinctive combination of mining assets, marketing expertise and physical supply-chain infrastructure.

Its role in VaultCo therefore extends beyond the ownership of individual mines. It places the company between producers and industrial consumers at a time when governments are increasingly treating access to copper, cobalt and other critical minerals as a strategic issue.

A widening US-Glencore minerals relationship

The VaultCo agreement is another step in a relationship that has expanded significantly during 2026.

Glencore's proposed partnership with Orion CMC links its DRC copper and cobalt assets directly to a US-backed investment vehicle, while its participation in VaultCo gives the company a role in the physical sourcing and delivery of critical minerals into a US strategic reserve.

Taken together, the developments illustrate how critical-minerals security is increasingly being structured around partnerships between governments, miners, commodity traders, investors and industrial consumers.

For Glencore, the opportunity lies in bringing its global production and marketing network into that emerging architecture - with Africa's copper and cobalt resources forming an important part of the supply chain.