India in talks over critical minerals deals with Brazil, Canada, France, Netherlands, sources say

A man holds Indian currency notes inside a shop in New Delhi, India, April 3, 2025. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi · Reuters

By Neha Arora

Tue, 10 February 2026 at 3:48 pm GMT+9 2 min read

By Neha Arora

NEW DELHI, Feb 10 (Reuters) - India is in talks with Brazil, Canada, France and the Netherlands over deals to jointly explore, extract, process and recycle critical minerals, ​sources said, as it broadens its global outreach to secure supplies of key raw materials.

The focus ‌would be on lithium and rare earths, and India would also seek access to mineral-processing technologies, the sources said, declining to ‌be identified because the discussions are confidential.

Heavy reliance on arch rival China, which dominates global supplies of many minerals and has advanced mining and processing technology, underscores the need for India to reach out to a range of countries as it accelerates its energy transition to cut emissions, mining experts said.

However, from discovery to ⁠production, mining can take years, as exploration ‌alone runs five to seven years and often ends without a viable mine.

India aims to replicate elements of a critical minerals agreement it signed with Germany in ‍January, which covers exploration, processing and recycling, as well as the acquisition and development of mineral assets in both countries and in third countries, one of the sources said.

“There are requests and we are talking to France, Netherlands and ​Brazil while the agreement with Canada is under active consideration,” the source said.

The Ministry of Mines ‌is leading the effort, the sources said.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is likely to visit India in early March and sign deals on uranium, energy, minerals and artificial intelligence.

Asked for comment, Canada’s Natural Resources Department referred to a January statement saying both sides had agreed to formalise cooperation on critical minerals in the coming weeks.

Brazil’s embassy in New Delhi, India’s Ministry of Mines and the foreign ministry did not respond ⁠to Reuters’ requests for comment. The embassy of the Netherlands ​did not comment while the embassy of France declined to ​comment.

India has been scouting globally for critical minerals and has signed pacts with Argentina, Australia, and Japan, and is in talks with Peru and Chile on broader bilateral agreements ‍that also cover critical ⁠minerals.

India’s expanding international engagement comes at a time when finance ministers from the G7 and other major economies met in Washington last month to discuss ways to cut dependence on rare earths ⁠from China.

In 2023, India identified more than 20 minerals, including lithium, as “critical” for its energy transition and to meet rising demand ‌from industry and the infrastructure sector.

Story Continues  

($1 = 90.15 rupees)

(Reporting by Neha Arora; additional reporting by ‌Saurabh Sharma; editing by Mayank Bhardwaj and Stephen Coates)

Terms and Privacy Policy

Privacy dashboard