New York, Jan 24, 2026, 09:31 EST — Market closed.
- Critical Metals shares ended Friday up 11.7% at $20.62, extending a two-session run that has added roughly a third to the stock.
- Traders have focused on fresh disclosures tied to the company’s Greenland rare earths project and planned Saudi processing venture.
- A late-week filing showed a key shareholder trimmed its stake in a Rule 144 sale.
Critical Metals Corp shares closed Friday up 11.7% at $20.62, capping a volatile two-day surge for the Nasdaq-listed rare earths developer as U.S. markets head into the weekend. The stock swung between $16.89 and $20.74 in the session and has nearly tripled since late December, according to historical data. 1
The move matters now because governments on both sides of the Atlantic are sharpening their push to lock down “critical minerals” supply chains — metals used in defence technologies, semiconductors and batteries — as worries about China’s influence on pricing and availability grow. “We can’t accept that China alone can decide the price of raw materials,” Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Friday. 2
Greenland has also become a political flashpoint, and that has kept a spotlight on companies tied to the Arctic island’s mineral potential. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Jan. 21 he was “seeking immediate negotiations” toward acquiring Greenland, while adding the need for talks had “nothing to do with rare earths,” Reuters reported. 3
Critical Metals is developing the Tanbreez rare earths project in southern Greenland. Rare earths are a group of metals used in high-strength magnets, including those that go into electric motors and some military hardware.
In a Jan. 15 press release, the company said it had executed a non-binding term sheet setting out a 50/50 joint venture with Saudi industrial group Tariq Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al‑Qahtani & Brothers Company (TQB) to develop a rare earth processing facility in Saudi Arabia, with an offtake allocation for 25% of Tanbreez concentrate. Chairman Tony Sage called it “a transformational milestone,” saying the offtake “de-risked” the pathway “from mine to market.” 4
Reuters reported at the time that the arrangement, if finalised, would refine 25% of Tanbreez’s planned output and could ease financing for a project the company has estimated at $290 million to start production next year. Abdulmalik Tariq Al‑Qahtani, Tariq’s CEO, said the firm saw “a strong opportunity to work closely with partners in the United States.” 5
A subsequent filing on Jan. 21 laid out additional detail and a key caveat. The company said it had “now entered into four non-binding term sheets” for offtake — long-term sales agreements — of rare-earth concentrate from Tanbreez, and warned there was “no guarantee” those outlines would turn into binding contracts. 6
Then on Friday, a Schedule 13D/A filing showed European Lithium Limited sold 5 million Critical Metals shares in a Rule 144 transaction — a U.S. framework that allows resales of certain restricted securities — for gross proceeds of about $85.5 million. After the sale, European Lithium reported beneficial ownership of 48.0 million shares, or 39.5% of the outstanding stock, the filing showed. 7
That mix of ambitious supply-chain plans and big blocks of stock moving around has made CRML a fast trade. The last three sessions alone have seen the shares drop 11% on Jan. 21, then jump 20.9% on Jan. 22 and 11.7% on Jan. 23, with daily volume consistently in the tens of millions of shares.
But the risks are not subtle. Critical Metals’ offtake outlines and parts of its Saudi processing plan are non-binding, and the company still has to navigate financing, execution and Greenland’s permitting and logistics. The company has previously said it expected to finalise remaining Tanbreez supply deals in the first quarter of 2026 — a timeline that now sits squarely in front of traders. 8
