News: Suppliers
19 January 2026
Snow Lake extends option agreement for Mound Lake Gallium Project
Canada-based nuclear fuel cycle and critical minerals company Snow Lake Resources Ltd (trading as Snow Lake Energy) has reached an agreement with Canadian Uranium Corp to extend the existing option agreement with respect to the Mound Lake Gallium Project, situated north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
The agreement coincides with the US Administration’s Proclamation ‘Adjusting Imports of Processed Critical Minerals and Their Derivative Products into the United States’ issued on 14 January, with its focus on ensuring that the USA has sufficient domestic mining and processing of critical minerals to reduce import reliance on foreign countries.
Highlights include:
- a one-year extension of the underlying option agreement;
- the Mound Lake area is highly prospective for lithium, cesium and tantalum (LCT) deposits, including a variety of rare earths and gallium;
- historical work on Mound Lake has confirmed gallium values ranging from 50ppm to 110ppm in a series of grab samples obtained during Canadian Uranium’s field program in 2023;
- the US imports 100% of its gallium requirements, as gallium is an essential component of many military and defense applications.
“As our primary focus remains the development of our nuclear fuel cycle business, we continue to pursue our ongoing strategy of opportunistically acquiring interests in North American-based critical minerals projects that hold the potential to assist in building domestic North American critical minerals supply chains,” says CEO Frank Wheatley. “Mound Lake fits nicely into that strategy, at modest cost, as historical work on Mound Lake has demonstrated the potential for gallium, as well as a variety of other rare-earth elements and LCT deposits,” he adds. “As the US Administration continues to advance it policies to ensure sufficient domestic mining and processing of critical minerals to ensure US national security, including gallium, we feel the potential of Mound Lake is worth exploring as a possible solution to US requirements.”
Gallium as a critical mineral
Considering that China controls about 98% of global gallium supply, gallium is classified as a critical mineral by the USA, Canada, Australia and the European Union. The US imports 100% of its gallium requirements. Gallium is typically produced as a by-product from smelting other critical minerals, such as aluminium and zinc, and its importance is due to its use in semiconductors, integrated circuits, high-performance radar, smartphones, electric vehicles, laptops, together with a variety of military applications.
US Administration Proclamation
The US Administration issued the Proclamation on 14 Januar in response to the Section 232 investigation into the effect of imports of processed critical minerals on US national security. The conclusion of the investigation was that imports of processed critical minerals did pose a US national security risk and the Proclamation is intended to outline steps that the US Government will take to address those risks.
The Proclamation specifically mentions gallium as critical to satellite systems that underpin the US military and defense apparatus. Steps to reduce these risks include negotiating agreements with respect to imports of critical minerals, price floors and other trade-restricting measures as appropriate.
Mound Lake Gallium Project
Mound Lake is an early-stage exploration project consisting of 243 single-cell unpatented mineral claims covering over 4800 hectares in the Thunder Bay mining district of Ontario. Historic exploration work on the northern part of Mound Lake, near the contact between the Mound Lake Pluton and metasedimentary country rocks, has demonstrated consistent, elevated gallium values, together with elevated levels of other critical metals, including beryllium, lithium and rubidium.
A total of 12 bedrock grab-samples collected during Canadian Uranium’s 2023 field program returned gallium values exceeding 50ppm, with the highest result measuring 110.5ppm. By way of comparison, gallium values in fertile granites and pegmatites typically peak at ~90ppm, while average gallium values in the earth’s crust are ~19ppm. Over 70% of the grab samples from Mound Lake returned gallium values above average crustal values.
Further exploration will be prioritized in the northern regions of Mound Lake, which may include further detailed analysis and mapping to identify potential targets for follow-up investigation and possible drilling.
Mound Lake extension agreement
The agreement extends the terms and conditions of the underlying option agreement for an additional year. This extension provides Snow Lake with the flexibility to plan additional exploration work on Mound Lake as part of Snow Lake’s 2026 exploration and development programs on its portfolio of critical minerals projects in North America. The underlying option agreement provides that Snow Lake can earn up to an 80% interest in Mound Lake through a combination of exploration expenditures and cash payments over a period of two years.
