Critical Minerals Policy & Compliance Monitor · Canada · US · EU
LodeIQ tracks the rules that decide your critical-minerals deals and tells you, every month, what changed.
For Canadian critical-minerals issuers, processors and their advisers. Each issue covers the US, EU and Canadian rules on your materials—tax-credit sourcing tests, foreign-investment review, export controls and battery due diligence—and what each change means for your financing, offtake and suppliers. Every claim carries its source, a confidence rating and the date we retrieved it.
Free monthly edition · Pilot $2,500 CAD for 90 days, credited to your first year · Plans from $6,000 CAD a year
Why it matters
Rules from four capitals now decide who can buy, fund and own Canadian critical minerals.
United States
Production tax credits
Manufacturers claiming the §45X credit must pass prohibited-foreign-entity tests on who owns and controls them. Battery components also face a test on inputs from such entities; critical minerals do not yet.
Source: Pub. L. 119-21 (2025); IRS Notice 2026-15
United States
Defence procurement
From 1 January 2027, contractors cannot deliver NdFeB or samarium-cobalt magnets to the Department of Defense if any step from mining to magnet took place in China, Russia, Iran or North Korea, with narrow exceptions.
Source: DFARS 252.225-7052
Canada
Foreign investment
Investment by state-owned enterprises in Canadian critical minerals is approved only on an exceptional basis, and Ottawa has ordered divestitures.
Source: Investment Canada Act; ISED policy of 28 Oct 2022; orders of 2 Nov 2022
China
Export controls
Exports of seven rare earths (samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium) have needed a licence since April 2025.
Source: MOFCOM Announcement No. 18 (2025)
European Union
Battery supply chains
The Battery Regulation sets supply-chain due-diligence duties for cobalt, lithium, nickel and natural graphite, applying from 18 August 2027.
Source: Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, as amended by 2025/1561
Each rule changes on its own schedule, in its own gazette. The usual options are a law-firm memo on one question, client alerts written for everyone, or a general-purpose AI model that may work from superseded law. LodeIQ follows them for your materials, every month.
What you get
A monthly issue, briefs when you need them, and the data behind both.
Monthly
The Monitor
One issue a month, scoped to the materials and jurisdictions you choose. It lists what changed—new and amended rules, effective dates, funding programs, trade actions, and changes in who owns and controls the companies you deal with—and ends each item with what it means for you.
Four a year
Briefs on demand
- Regulatory Scan: which rules apply to a material in the jurisdictions you name, and from when.
- Compliance Decision Brief: whether a named supplier, buyer or investor clears a specific test, such as the US prohibited-foreign-entity rules, with the evidence.
- Entity Dossier: who owns and runs a company or facility, what it produces and what it is exposed to.
The data
The Explorer
Every record the issues are built from, in one place. Filter it, map it, chart it and save the view. Each value opens to its source, its confidence and the date we retrieved it.
Public
The free edition
A monthly issue across all materials, Canada first, free to anyone who asks. Issue 001 is in preparation.
Get the free edition →How each issue is made
1Collect
Public sources, on daily, weekly and monthly schedules
2Record
Each fact stored with its source, confidence and retrieval date
3Draft
A language model writes from those records only
4Check
Claims without a source are rejected; citations are verified
5Review
A person reads and approves every issue before it is sent
Who it’s for
Three kinds of teams, and the questions they bring.
Issuers
TSX and TSXV critical-minerals companies: corporate development, investor relations and finance.
- Would this investor’s stake trigger a national-security review under the Investment Canada Act?
- Can a US buyer still claim its tax credit if it takes our material?
- Which rule changes this quarter belong in the board pack?
Processors
Cathode, precursor, cell and recycling plants in Ontario, Québec and Michigan: procurement and compliance.
- Does this supplier’s ownership put our §45X credit at risk?
- Which of our inputs need a Chinese export licence?
- What takes effect in the next twelve months?
Advisers
Law firms, investor-relations firms and mining consultants who serve issuers.
- What changed this month for each client’s materials?
- Can we give clients a sourced monitor under our own name?
Why you can rely on it
Tested against a general-purpose AI model, claim by claim.
We put one real procurement question to the same model twice, once on its own and once inside LodeIQ: should a Michigan cathode maker qualify a second, non-Chinese cobalt supplier? Every load-bearing claim in both answers was then checked against primary sources.
| Audited against primary sources | Model on its own | Same model in LodeIQ |
|---|---|---|
| Correct load-bearing claims | 21 | 22 |
| Fabricated claims | 5 | 1: a citation number, since corrected and now checked automatically |
| Stale or superseded claims | 2, including the governing law | 0 |
| Gaps disclosed as “not in our data” | 0 | 6, each confirmed as a real gap |
One question, run on 16 July 2026. The full exhibit and audit are available on request.
Sourced, rated, dated
Every claim shows its source, a confidence rating (high, medium or low) and the date we retrieved it. A low-confidence claim is never presented as high.
Checked by machine
Every Federal Register citation must match a ledger verified against the Federal Register’s own records. Sources we do not accept are blocked when data is written, and the whole data store is audited every night.
Gaps stated, not filled
When the data does not answer a question, the issue says so and says what would close the gap.
Read before it is sent
Every issue is read and approved by a person before it reaches you. Nothing goes out straight from the machine.
Coverage
What the data covers today, and what it does not.
Covered
- 165 regulations and programs across the US, the EU, Canada and other producing countries, 158 of them rated high confidence.
- 396 companies, 170 of them with a recorded foreign-entity-of-concern status and its confidence.
- 278 facilities worldwide; all 30 in Canada carry a sourced owner.
- Materials: lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, manganese and rare earths.
Counts from the live data store on 2026-09-23.
Not covered
- Price assessments. We carry only the World Bank’s monthly nickel and copper series, labelled with source and date.
- Canadian federal programs announced since 2023, which we are adding now, and provincial rules.
- Legal advice. We show the facts, the thresholds and the sources; whether a test is met is for your counsel.
Pricing
Published prices, in Canadian dollars.
Paid by invoice. No card required.
Pilot
$2,500 CAD / 90 days
- One scope for 90 days: three monthly issues and one brief
- Credited to your first year
Monitor
$6,000 CAD / year
- The monthly Monitor for your materials and jurisdictions
- Four on-demand briefs a year
Monitor + Compliance
$15,000 CAD / year
- Everything in Monitor
- A quarterly Compliance Decision Brief on your named suppliers
- A 30-minute read-out call each quarter
Adviser licence
$12,000 CAD / year
- The Monitor for up to 10 client scopes
- Word and PowerPoint exports for your own letterhead
Every paid plan includes the Explorer, share links, and exports in PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Markdown.
Start with the free edition, or a 90-day pilot on your own materials.
The pilot covers one scope, your materials and jurisdictions: three monthly issues and one brief for $2,500 CAD, credited to your first year.