Crustal Resources AB

Bolag noterat på NGM Growth Market (CRUST B), verksamt inom förvärv, utveckling och värdeskapande av råvarubaserade projekt inom ädla och strategiska metaller.

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Nästa steg

Resultaten från de tre markmagnetiska mätningarna inkluderas nu i de pågående och kommande arbetsströmmarna inom ramen för det tidigare annonserade sommararbetsprogrammet. Relevanta resultat kommer löpande presenteras över sommaren.

https://t.co/eVokwGBe01

5/5

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Nyhet från igår!

Vi har genomfört tre markmagnetiska mätningar i Västerviksdistriktet – vid Gladhammar, Ringsbo och Lebo.

Kort förklarat: magnetiska mönster hjälper oss att se geologiska strukturer som inte alltid syns tydligt på ytan.

Det ger bättre underlag för nästa steg i prospekteringen.

https://t.co/6Rhv0gtGC0

1/

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Lebo

Vid Lebo har mätningen gjorts över delar av en cirka 1 km lång trend med historiska gruvhål och bergprover med intressanta koppar- och guldhalter.

Resultaten visar ett komplext område med magnetiska anomalier som delvis följer strukturen.

4/

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

@AFV_magasin https://t.co/GlHSObODHH

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

@AFV_magasin https://t.co/GlHSObODHH

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Det blev inget gräva guld i USA efter förlusten mot Frankrike. ⚽️

Istället kan man läsa det här trevliga reportaget om oss i @AFV_magasin

Spoiler alert: Det är inte i lera vi jagar efter avkastning, inte heller är vaskning en central metod i vårt arbete.

Däremot täcker reportaget intressanta teman som en ny våg av svensk prospektering driven av behovet av strategiska metaller för elektrifiering, AI och försvar. Vår syn på en kommande supercykel för olika metaller. Samt hur vi applicerar modern prospekteringsteori och metoder för att expandera ett historiskt gruvdistrikt.

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

👇👀

[SemiAnalysis @SemiAnalysis_]

One of the most underappreciated ways to play the AI semiconductor buildout may be through materials rather than chips themselves.

As the industry races to produce more advanced semiconductors, demand isn’t just rising for GPUs and wafer fab equipment, it’s rising for the critical materials that make modern chips possible. (1/6)🧵

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

@Teo_Sinamin Great insight, thank you.

Another use case which is interesting is tin bismuth solder;
https://t.co/zMUTbnQqs2

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Our recent Linkedin post (pasted below) mentioning $SIVE, photonics for AI data centres and potential metal bottlenecks feels very on point having read this article:

"Photonics applications, fueled by growth in AI data center buildouts, are especially sensitive to high process temperatures. In particular, the peak reflow temperature of solder plays a key role in the performance of silicon photonics devices."

https://t.co/if9iYjcJ07

---

𝐧𝐀𝐈𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐦

A recent peak in positive news flow and sentiment for the AI-theme, in its broadest sense, have left me pondering. Don't get me wrong - I am extremely optimistic around what the future entails due to the progress being made around AI. The itch is whether investors are being naive in regards to what bottlenecks we might be facing on the metal supply side.

Leaders in the AI and chip industries have been more frequently vocal about the bottlenecks faced on the compute and energy side to enable the demand for AI-use. Copper as the backbone of electricity transmission, both on a grid scale but also down to a microscale within AI-compute stacks, is fairly understood within a broader audience. But what about the soldering, production tools and other lesser known use cases?

This week it was announced that EQT Group is getting the mandate to manage the EU's Scaleup Europe Fund. The fund will manage €5.5bn and invest tickets of €100m in startups within deeptech. The purpose is said to be defend Europe's position within future facing technologies in competition against the US and China. Targeted technologies include quant computing, robotics, defense and advanced materials. These are technologies that are highly dependent on metals for which China completely controls supply. Similarily in recent news EU is looking to stockpile tungsten, REE and gallium, again metals within the control of China.

This morning Alexander Norén at Swedish national TV covered the AI-boom and highlighted three emerging trends within AI. One being the need for raw materials. Unfortunately the description of that issue stopped at describing raw materials as the need for energy, chips and data centers.

Some of the best-performing stocks listed in Sweden are Sivers Semiconductors and recent IPO Silex Microsystems, targeting photonics and chip production. I have yet to see a single mention on whether supply of metals or other raw materials could potentially hinder expected future growth.

The optimism from investors for deeptech and AI is exhilarating. But let's not be naive of the potential headwinds on the horizon. At least a fraction of the investment allocations should really be targeted at securing the metals needed, within Europe. Obviously talking my own book here with Crustal Resources AB where we are looking to do our part to contribute to the solution. I cover the same themes in my recent CEO-letter (posted in comment). It is in Swedish but can easily be translated with AI.

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Another use case covered earlier by us:

https://t.co/zMUTbnQqs2

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Our recent Linkedin post (pasted below) mentioning $SIVE, photonics for AI data centres and potential metal bottlenecks feels very on point having read this article:

"Photonics applications, fueled by growth in AI data center buildouts, are especially sensitive to high process temperatures. In particular, the peak reflow temperature of solder plays a key role in the performance of silicon photonics devices."

https://t.co/if9iYjcJ07

---

𝐧𝐀𝐈𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐦

A recent peak in positive news flow and sentiment for the AI-theme, in its broadest sense, have left me pondering. Don't get me wrong - I am extremely optimistic around what the future entails due to the progress being made around AI. The itch is whether investors are being naive in regards to what bottlenecks we might be facing on the metal supply side.

Leaders in the AI and chip industries have been more frequently vocal about the bottlenecks faced on the compute and energy side to enable the demand for AI-use. Copper as the backbone of electricity transmission, both on a grid scale but also down to a microscale within AI-compute stacks, is fairly understood within a broader audience. But what about the soldering, production tools and other lesser known use cases?

This week it was announced that EQT Group is getting the mandate to manage the EU's Scaleup Europe Fund. The fund will manage €5.5bn and invest tickets of €100m in startups within deeptech. The purpose is said to be defend Europe's position within future facing technologies in competition against the US and China. Targeted technologies include quant computing, robotics, defense and advanced materials. These are technologies that are highly dependent on metals for which China completely controls supply. Similarily in recent news EU is looking to stockpile tungsten, REE and gallium, again metals within the control of China.

This morning Alexander Norén at Swedish national TV covered the AI-boom and highlighted three emerging trends within AI. One being the need for raw materials. Unfortunately the description of that issue stopped at describing raw materials as the need for energy, chips and data centers.

Some of the best-performing stocks listed in Sweden are Sivers Semiconductors and recent IPO Silex Microsystems, targeting photonics and chip production. I have yet to see a single mention on whether supply of metals or other raw materials could potentially hinder expected future growth.

The optimism from investors for deeptech and AI is exhilarating. But let's not be naive of the potential headwinds on the horizon. At least a fraction of the investment allocations should really be targeted at securing the metals needed, within Europe. Obviously talking my own book here with Crustal Resources AB where we are looking to do our part to contribute to the solution. I cover the same themes in my recent CEO-letter (posted in comment). It is in Swedish but can easily be translated with AI.

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Great intro to one supply chain with a bright future for bismuth. Gold at our Gladhammar project was discovered by SGU in the 1930s when investigated for bismuth. We are now going full circle looking at both gold, copper and bismuth.

[Teo @Teo_Sinamin]

Bismuth telluride may the next specialty material heading into a supply chain bottleneck. But the shape of it is different to what most people assume.

It is the thermoelectric material inside micro-cooling chips that sit on every optical module – some people call it TEM, some call it the Peltier module.

First, the bismuth supply chain.

Bismuth is almost never mined for itself. It's a byproduct from processing lead, tungsten, and copper smelting. A main bismuth mine doesn’t exist. You build a lead mine and bismuth comes along for the ride. That means bismuth supply is structurally inelastic. It moves at the pace of lead and tungsten mining, not bismuth demand.

Global mine production in 2025 was roughly 25000 tonnes. China produced 20000 of those, which is about 85% of the world's bismuth. The next tier isn't close: Peru (1800t), Mexico (1200t), Bolivia (400t), Vietnam (~300) and so on.

That's the mining and smelting step. The refining step is where the landscape is completely different. Taking bismuth metal to 5N or 6N purity (99.999%+),the grade thermoelectric applications require – multiple purification processes.

The infrastructure exists almost exclusively inside China. Over 80% of global ultra-high-purity bismuth and tellurium refining capacity sits there. There are others out there but they don’t represent in a meaningful way in the 5N or 6N scale.

Building it isn't quick. A new lead or tungsten mine that produces bismuth as a byproduct takes 5-10 years from discovery. The countries with bismuth reserves (Vietnam, Bolivia, Peru) don't have the refining infrastructure. The countries with refining know-how (Japan, Korea, Germany) don't have the feedstock. China has both.

This is the foundation everything else sits on. Beijing isn't banning bismuth exports outright - they're tightening it through export control. But when 85% of production and 80%+ of high-purity refining lives inside one country, "tightened export" is functionally the same as supply rationing for anyone outside.

And you can't substitute bismuth in these chips – at least not yet.

That brings us to the Japanese producers of Peltier modules. And the biggest name most people miss: Ferrotec.

Ferrotec is the largest Japanese producer of Peltier modules. And here's the structural detail that changes everything — Ferrotec has multiple manufacturing plants inside China. Their Chinese operations can source domestic bismuth telluride directly. No export license. No customs bottleneck. No supply interruption. They’re safe.

However, others like Dowa Thermoelectric, KELK (Komatsu's subsidiary), Kyocera may not be in a such fortunate positions. These guys don't have Ferrotec's China production footprint. Their feedstock comes through cross-border supply chains. Export controls have cut that off. KELK's inventory runs to mid-July. Dowa is reportedly tighter. Kyocera's position on feedstock isn't public. They're in the same boat – a sinking one.

So while a chunk of Japanese capacity is genuinely at risk, Ferrotec's production keeps running. The supply shock isn't a collapse. It's a supply chain reshuffle.

Here's how the reshuffle actually plays out.
The demand side is not waiting. The shift from 400G to 1.6T optical modules drives up to 4x the cooling elements per unit. Next year's Bismuth Telluride consumption is forecast to double over 2026. Military infrared and energy storage thermal management add demand on top. Even if only a portion of Japan's capacity goes offline, the supply-demand math gets uncomfortable fast.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing that China has placed US defence companies into export control list. This should help to divert supplies from defence to semiconductor.

Ferrotec is the only major producer with uninterrupted feedstock. Their order book is about to become the most sought-after document in the optical module supply chain. Who gets priority? Existing Japanese customers who've been buying for years, or the Chinese module makers who are scaling up quickly?

A handful of Chinese producers exist but even maxed out by end of 2026 they'd cover maybe 12% of global high-end demand. Certification cycles with the optical module giants take quarters, not weeks.
Dowa, KELK, and Kyocera's combined shares have no near-term replacement. 5N+ Bismuth purification lines outside China take 12-18 months minimum, and they can't get feedstock anyway.

The deeper pattern is what I keep coming back to. China's export controls aren't random. They're picking materials where China has near-total upstream dominance AND where the downstream pain is felt across the strategic sectors: AI hardware, defence, high-end manufacturing.

Bismuth Telluride IMO checks every box - 85% of mining, 80%+ of refining, and the end product goes straight into the hardware layer of the semiconductor.

But the controls aren't a perfect weapon either. Supply chains are messy. Companies have footprints across borders. Ferrotec is the only Japanese producer that would be immune to this specifically because it invested in Chinese manufacturing capacity years ago.

As usual, this is my personal take on how Bismuth is mined, refined and flow into semiconductor.

A structural chokepoint may/has been created as a result of China’s export control, but I am seeing supply chain alternatives in China.

This seems to align everything I’ve studied & understood about China’s strategy in choking the mid-stream of minerals.

We shall see how it pans out in due course.

[cek @cekdrew]

I’m betting on critical minerals and rare earths being the trade of the decade.

The thesis is remarkably simple: Your favorite sector likely can’t reach its full potential without them. In some cases, it may not get close. China knows this.

Meanwhile, China is slowly, methodically, and tactically reminding the world that they are the ones who spent the last few decades preparing for this exact inflection point.

There has been so many examples of this so far this year. Most people still haven’t connected the dots.

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Centralbankers köp av guld har varit en alltmer viktig faktor för guldpriset.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

World central banks are incredibly bullish on gold:

45% of central banks said they plan to buy gold over the next 12 months, the highest reading on record, according to the World Gold Council survey of 74 central banks.

This percentage has more than doubled since 2020 and marks the 3rd consecutive annual increase.

Emerging market and developing economy central banks led the increase, with a record ~53% of this group planning to add gold, up from 48% last year.

Overall, 89% of central banks expect global gold reserves to increase over the next 12 months, the 2nd-highest reading on record.

Central banks are buying the gold dip.

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Kul att fynd från Småland för andra året i rad vinner Mineraljakten som anordnas av @sguSverige . Vårt Västervikdistrikt är positionerat just för att undersöka denna potentialen.

https://t.co/PQWaPyhWd3

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

@Engbl0m Samtidigt har du gjort kopplingen till metaller - vilket de flesta missat/struntar i

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

Spot on.

Countries like Sweden are metal users, not owners. If China restricts frontier access, we could regress fast.

Three paths:

1. Go all-in on sovereign mines + downstream refining (brutal but independent)

2. Stay dependent and negotiate special China access

3. Find a smarter third way (alliances, open-source coalitions, metal partnerships?)

What should small high-trust nations actually do?

[Fredrik Hjelm 🇸🇪 @FredrikHjelm4]

Spot on from @gabriel1 (Swedish AI researcher/founder at the frontier).

Countries like Sweden are AI users, not owners. If the US restricts frontier access, we could regress fast.

Three paths:

1. Go all-in on sovereign models + compute (brutal but independent)

2. Stay dependent and negotiate special US/Western access

3. Find a smarter third way (alliances, open-source coalitions, compute partnerships?)

What should small high-trust nations actually do?

[David Lee @DavidLe76335983]

Two Japanese firms just shut down their production line, cutting 25% of the world’s tungsten hexafluoride (WF₆) capacity. This is what Chinese critical minerals dominance looks like in action — slowly choking allies’ high-tech economies

Kanto Denka Kogyo (sometimes referenced with Showa Denko ties) and Central Glass have notified big chipmakers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and TSMC: inventories run out in June, lines shut for good from July 1. Boom — 2,200 tons of annual global WF₆ capacity gone. This specialized gas is essential for depositing ultra-thin tungsten layers in advanced semiconductors (3D NAND, DRAM, logic chips). Without it, fabs slow or stop

Why? China controls ~80% of global tungsten supply and refining. Beijing tightened export controls and licensing on strategic minerals (tungsten included) — hitting Japan hard. Shipments to Japan have plunged, raw material costs spiked, and these specialty gas producers can’t keep operating profitably or at all. Japanese firms were high-quality, reliable suppliers that Korea and others depended on for ~80% of their WF₆ in some cases

This isn’t random. Japanese PM Takaichi hostile posturing against China and plan to remilitarize Japan brought about Chinese sanction of dual use critical minerals (tungsten, rare earths, etc.) to Japanese companies. Higher costs, supply chaos, lost competitiveness, and eventual factory pain ripple through the semiconductor chain. Auto, electronics, defense… all feel it downstream.

Japan’s been diversifying and stockpiling, but decades of over-reliance on Chinese inputs make this a slow bleed. Allies need to accelerate onshoring, friend-shoring, and alternative processing FAST. Relying on an adversary for the guts of your chip industry isn’t strategy — it’s vulnerability

The “just-in-time” global supply chain was efficient until it wasn’t. Now it’s a national security risk. Wake-up call for anyone still sleeping on critical minerals

https://t.co/KLyOokj2CC

[Crustal Resources AB @CrustalVentures]

"Sommarens arbetsprogram är utformat för att skapa tydliga nästa steg i vår projektportfölj. I Gladhammar går vi nu vidare med en ny mineralresursuppskattning för den ytnära guldfyndigheten, samtidigt som vi utvecklar förståelsen för ett större mineraliserat system. I övriga projekt handlar det om att snabbt och kostnadseffektivt identifiera vilka målområden som har bäst förutsättningar att utvecklas vidare. Med olika parallella och sekventiella arbetsströmmar kan vi löpande kommunicera relevanta resultat över sommaren. Programmet är fullt finansierat och ger oss möjlighet att arbeta brett, men med tydligt fokus.", säger Filip Manneberg Kozlowski, VD för Crustal.

https://t.co/VSmfa08Isl