Brazil wants a bigger role in critical minerals beyond China's orbit, and it is writing checks to prove it. BNDES approved 77.5 million reais over 16 years for Viridis Mining and Minerals to support a research hub and a demonstration plant tied to Colossus, CEO Rafael Moreno said. The project in southeastern Brazil made last year's shortlist of 56 initiatives vying for up to 5 billion reais from BNDES and innovation agency Finep to build out domestic supply chains.
Viridis, listed in Australia, also raised additional funds last month for the $449 million build, anchored by a $75 million equity injection from One Investment Management, an alternatives manager that counts former SoftBank executive Rajeev Misra as a co-founder. Viridis says that raise more than covers the 30% equity slice it is targeting for the project.
With the fresh BNDES facility, the outstanding debt needed to complete Colossus's construction drops to about $280 million. Viridis is still in discussions with BNDES and lenders in Europe, Australia and Canada to secure larger-scale debt for the commercial plant, where production is slated to start in the second half of 2028. "We're hoping to finalize in the next month, six weeks maximum, for the other funding," Moreno said.
He added that Viridis has handed in its final feasibility study, and banks will now run their own due diligence before issuing term sheets. The company is also talking with BNDESPar, the bank's equity arm, about a potential stake.
Viridis and European chemicals group Solvay SA aim to sign a binding offtake by the end of September for mixed light and heavy rare-earth concentrates. The destination for the remaining quarter is still to be decided. The proposed agreement has no price floor, and Moreno said the company is talking with the European Union about a price support mechanism "that's progressing well in the background." According to the company, Solvay's facility ranks as one of the biggest rare-earth separation operations beyond China and is also among the few worldwide capable of processing the entire range of rare earths at industrial scale.
Brazil is tightening oversight too. Lawmakers approved a critical-minerals bill last week that enhances government review of mining deals, including supply contracts. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is pushing for Brazil to retain more value domestically rather than chiefly exporting raw material.
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In step with that, the Colossus commercial plant will deploy Solvay technology in a refining circuit that removes lower-value lanthanum to boost the share of higher-priced magnet metals. Average annual output is pegged at 2,967 tons of magnetic rare-earth oxides.
Viridis has received nonbinding expressions of backing from Export Finance Australia, Export Development Canada and Bpifrance, and Moreno said teams from the European Investment Bank and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation have visited the site. Brazil is not alone here - the U.S. and other Western countries are also backing projects to reduce dependence on China for rare earths that go into defense equipment, EVs, wind turbines and advanced electronics. As Moreno put it, "there's only a very limited number of offtake partners in the world," and if Brazil misses the window to get mines producing, "how are they supposed to build the rest of the value chain?"
For your portfolio, the practical takeaway is simple: Colossus has moved beyond the drawing board with state funding and fresh equity, but the big swing is still ahead - locking long-term offtake and several hundred million dollars of debt before first production in 2028.
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