By Accompong Network News Investigative Desk Published: June 2026
On May 13, 2026, Jamaica’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Floyd Green, stood in Gordon House and told parliament that Jamaica is pushing toward a commercial rare earth plant. The country, he said, is sitting on mineral wealth the world desperately needs. A signing is expected soon. Jamaica is open for business.
The headlines ran with it. What they did not run with was the context — who was already in the room, what deals had already been signed, and what is happening on Jamaica’s south coast that no mainstream outlet has connected to the global critical minerals war now being fought between the United States and China.
This is that story.
What Are Rare Earth Elements — And Why Is Everyone Scrambling?
Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metals — neodymium, dysprosium, terbium, scandium, yttrium among them — that go into smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, AI chips, and military hardware including night vision equipment, missile guidance systems, and F-35 fighter jets.
China controls approximately 60 percent of global rare earth mining and roughly 91 percent of global processing and refining. For decades, Western governments allowed that dependency to deepen. In April 2025, China began calling in that debt — restricting exports of seven specific rare earth elements, including dysprosium and terbium. European prices for those elements reached up to six times their Chinese domestic equivalent within months. Car factories in the United States and Europe cut production. The Pentagon started making phone calls.
It is in that environment — a genuine global scramble for alternative rare earth sources — that Floyd Green stood up in Gordon House and said Jamaica is open for business.
The Announcement vs The Reality
Green’s May 13 speech was reported as a breakthrough. Reading the actual text of what he said tells a different story.
The Jamaica Bauxite Institute, Green told parliament, is in advanced discussions with the local licence holder. A two-year investment and development programme is expected to begin. A sampling programme has been completed. And — his exact words — “we look forward to a formal signing.”
That is not a plant. That is not a signed agreement. That is a minister telling parliament he hopes to sign something in the near future.
Jamaica has been here before — twice.
More than a decade ago, Japan’s Nippon Light Metal entered a 50-50 partnership with the Jamaica Bauxite Institute. Nippon spent US$50 million on an experimental laboratory and production facility at the JBI compound in Kingston. New extraction technologies were patented. Then the price of rare earths softened and the project died. No commercial plant. No revenue. No jobs.
A few years later, DADA Holdings — the group that would later become part of the ATALCO structure — announced a joint venture with Canadian clean-technology company Enervoxa to extract rare earth elements from 35 million tonnes of red mud at the Gramercy refinery in Louisiana. That red mud came from Jamaican bauxite. That project also did not reach commercial scale.
Jamaica is now on attempt number three. As of the date of Green’s speech: no signed commercial agreement, no finalised fiscal regime, no passed Mining Act amendment, no capital secured publicly, no technology partner named.
Green confirmed to parliament that he has “instructed a team to finalise the fiscal regime around the production of rare earth elements.” Instructed a team to finalise — meaning it is not finalised.
Floyd Green — One Minister, Two Roles
Floyd Green has been the Member of Parliament for South West St. Elizabeth since 2016. Since May 2023, he has also served as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining — the minister responsible for issuing mineral exploration licences across the entire island of Jamaica.
He is simultaneously the elected representative of one of the most mineral-rich constituencies in Jamaica, and the man with the authority to grant licences over those same minerals.
In March 2026, Green travelled to Toronto to attend PDAC 2026 — the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention, the largest mining investment conference in the world. Speaking to an audience of international mining investors, he said: “These areas are open for partnerships. Jamaica is open for business. Think critical minerals. Think Jamaica when you are considering investments in critical minerals. The government is ready and willing to facilitate.”
Also at PDAC 2026 that same week, presenting to the same investor audience, was Robert “Bobby” Stewart — Managing Director and founder of Geophysx Jamaica Limited.
Geophysx — One Company, A Map of the Entire Island
Geophysx Jamaica is a privately held mineral exploration company. What Stewart told investors at PDAC 2026 is something every Jamaican should know.
Geophysx has now sampled the entire island of Jamaica — everywhere that was not a protected area. Approximately 45,000 assays of rock, stream sediment, and soil. Airborne surveys combined with extensive geochemistry. At PDAC 2026, Stewart confirmed that Geophysx has identified two sources of rare earth elements in Jamaica — without specifying where.
Geophysx holds exploration licences across Clarendon, Portland, St. Andrew, St. Catherine, St. Mary, and St. Thomas. The company has existing partnerships with Barrick Gold, C3 Metals, and Freeport-McMoRan on other Jamaican deposits.
The minister who issues those licences is the MP for the constituency where some of the most strategically valuable deposits on the island now sit.
Both men were in Toronto in the same week, pitching the same island to the same international capital.
Accompong Network News is not asserting that a crime has been committed. We are asserting that the Jamaican public deserves to know the structure of who benefits when these deals are signed — because by the time the ink is dry, it is almost always too late to ask.
The Pentagon Is Already in the Room
While Green was announcing a future plant, a $450 million transaction had already been completed — and it runs entirely on Jamaican bauxite.
In January 2026, the United States Department of Defense, through its Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment programme, invested US$150 million in preferred equity in Atlantic Alumina — known as ATALCO. That investment was paired with over US$300 million from Concord Resources Holdings Limited, a subsidiary of Pinnacle Asset Management. Total commitment: US$450 million.
The stated purpose: to sustain the Gramercy refinery in Louisiana — the last remaining alumina refinery in the United States — and to establish America’s first large-scale gallium production circuit. Gallium is a critical semiconductor and military material. China controls its global supply. The Gramercy refinery produces gallium as a byproduct of alumina processing.
ATALCO’s Gramercy refinery runs entirely on bauxite from one source: Discovery Bauxite Partners, operating out of St. Ann, Jamaica. Jamaica Bauxite Mining Limited holds 51 percent of Discovery Bauxite Partners. The other 49 percent is managed by Concord — the same Concord that put US$300 million into ATALCO alongside the Pentagon.
The Pentagon is now a financial stakeholder in a supply chain that begins in the soil of Jamaica. The bauxite leaves St. Ann, crosses the ocean to Louisiana, is refined into alumina and gallium, and the strategic and financial upside flows to a Bermuda-domiciled company and the United States government.
Jamaica holds 51 percent of the upstream mining joint venture. Concord manages the operation.
And the levy Jamaica collects on every tonne of bauxite that leaves the island?
One dollar and fifty cents.
How Jamaica Lost Its Floor
The original bauxite levy required companies to pay a floor rate of US$5 per tonne of bauxite mined — designed specifically to protect Jamaica from the transfer pricing manipulation that allows multinationals to under-report revenues in extraction jurisdictions.
When Noranda — the previous operator of the Gramercy refinery — went bankrupt in 2016, a new buyer appeared. DADA Holdings. As a condition of the acquisition, the Holness administration agreed to restructure the levy. The floor was cut from US$5 to US$1.50 per tonne — 30 percent of the original floor. That arrangement was locked in for 25 years.
The parliamentary opposition calculated Jamaica should have earned US$38 million in the period since the deal was signed. The government’s own figure was US$7 million. The International Monetary Fund flagged the arrangement in a country report, noting it potentially undermined Jamaica’s hard-earned fiscal gains.
Nobody was held accountable. The deal stands.
Now that the Pentagon holds preferred equity in ATALCO — the company sustained by that same Jamaican bauxite — any future renegotiation of that levy will not be a conversation between Jamaica and a private company. It will be a conversation between Jamaica and the United States Department of Defense.
Parottee — The Story Underneath the Story
While the red mud announcement dominated coverage, there is a separate deposit on Jamaica’s south coast that connects to the most strategically urgent dimension of the global rare earth crisis — and almost no one is covering it.
The south coast of St. Elizabeth — the Parottee area, the Black River coastline — sits on deposits of heavy mineral sands. The primary extraction targets are titanium and zirconium minerals — ilmenite, rutile, zircon. But heavy mineral sand deposits also produce monazite as a byproduct. And monazite contains dysprosium and terbium — the exact elements China cut off from the United States in April 2025.
When China restricted those exports, European prices rose sixfold almost overnight. Canada’s Saskatchewan Research Council moved rapidly to position its Saskatoon processing facility as an alternative supplier for the US military, specifically citing dysprosium and terbium.
The south coast of St. Elizabeth is sitting on a coastal deposit containing exactly those minerals.
Floyd Green is the MP for South West St. Elizabeth. He is the minister issuing mineral licences. Bobby Stewart told PDAC investors that Geophysx has identified two rare earth sources in Jamaica without specifying their location. The south coast heavy mineral sands are the single most strategically valuable deposit type on the island given China’s current export restrictions.
Accompong Network News is directing the following questions to Minister Green:
- Are mineral exploration licences for the Parottee coastal area currently held, applied for, or under negotiation?
- By whom — and when were those applications received relative to your appointment as minister?
- Who negotiated the US$1.50 bauxite levy, on what basis, and why does it remain the operative deal in 2026?
The communities along the Parottee coastline — including those displaced under Hurricane Melissa recovery frameworks that connected to silica sand extraction interests — deserve answers before any commercial arrangement is finalised.
The Pattern
The details documented in this investigation are not random. They form a pattern Jamaica has lived through before.
A company goes bankrupt or threatens closure. Jobs are held hostage. The government negotiates under duress and accepts terms that would not survive public scrutiny in calmer conditions. The deal gets locked in for a generation. The public never receives a full accounting of whether the numbers made sense.
The minister responsible for issuing licences over the island’s most valuable mineral deposits is also the elected representative of the communities sitting on top of those deposits.
The private exploration company with a complete mineral map of the entire island presents at the same investor conference as the minister, to the same audience, in the same week.
The Pentagon takes an equity position in the supply chain that begins in Jamaican soil — which means any future attempt by Jamaica to renegotiate its terms must first clear a national security argument from the most powerful military on earth.
And the announcement of a commercial rare earth plant — the third such announcement in roughly a decade — arrives not with a signed deal, a capitalised partner, a named technology, or a passed law. It arrives as a speech. Timed to a global critical minerals panic when Jamaica’s flag in the ground is worth something to international capital, even if nothing stands behind it yet.
Meanwhile, in Parottee, families are still waiting to hear whether their coastline will be next.
What Needs to Happen
Floyd Green must answer questions — not in a press release, but in a public forum where follow-up is possible.
The Mining Act amendments Green referenced must be tabled, debated, and passed — not instructed to a team and forgotten.
The fiscal regime for rare earth production must be finalised and published before any commercial agreement is signed — not after.
The US$1.50 bauxite levy must be renegotiated in the context of the Pentagon’s US$450 million investment in the supply chain it governs.
And the licensing status of the south St. Elizabeth coastal zone must be made public — not quietly advanced while the attention of the Jamaican press is fixed on red mud.
Jamaica’s mineral wealth is real. The institutional follow-through has failed twice before. The question is not whether the rare earth opportunity exists. The question is whether Jamaica will own a meaningful share of the upside — or whether the island will once again carry the environmental liability while the profits flow to Bermuda, Louisiana, and a fund managing US$6 billion in assets.
The Jamaican people deserve to know the answer before the signing ceremony.
Sources
- Jamaica Information Service — Minister Floyd Green sectoral debate speech, Gordon House, May 13, 2026 https://jis.gov.jm
- PDAC 2026 — Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention presentations, Toronto, March 2026 https://www.pdac.ca
- US Department of Defense — Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment programme, ATALCO investment announcement, January 2026 https://www.defense.gov
- Concord Resources Holdings Limited / Pinnacle Asset Management — ATALCO investment disclosure https://www.concordresources.com
- Jamaica Gleaner — “Floyd Green should be in discussions with Geophysx on rare earth extraction” https://jamaica-gleaner.com
- Jamaica Gleaner — Bauxite levy history, DADA Holdings acquisition, $1.50 per tonne deal structure https://jamaica-gleaner.com
- Jamaica Observer — Opposition calculation of US$38 million vs government figure of US$7 million https://jamaicaobserver.com
- International Monetary Fund — Jamaica country report, discretionary tax waivers and fiscal impact https://www.imf.org
- Nippon Light Metal / Jamaica Bauxite Institute joint venture — experimental REE facility, Hope Pastures, Kingston https://jbi.gov.jm
- DADA Holdings / Enervoxa joint venture announcement — Gramercy Louisiana red mud REE project https://www.prnewswire.com
- Geophysx Jamaica Limited — PDAC 2026 investor presentation, Bobby Stewart, 45,000 assay programme https://www.pdac.ca
- US Critical Minerals Ministerial — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, February 2026, 54 nations https://www.state.gov
- China rare earth export controls — April 2025 restrictions, dysprosium, terbium, samarium https://www.reuters.com
- Saskatchewan Research Council — Saskatoon rare earth processing facility, US military supply positioning https://www.src.sk.ca
- Discovery Bauxite Partners — ownership structure, Jamaica Bauxite Mining Limited 51 percent stake https://jbi.gov.jm
- UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List — Cockpit Country Protected Area nomination https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6822/
- Jamaica Attorney General — Mining Act amendment guidance, Floyd Green statement May 2026 https://jis.gov.jm
- CSIS — Critical minerals supply chain analysis, rare earth alternative sourcing timelines https://www.csis.org
- Accompong Network News — Parottee / St. Elizabeth coastal mineral sands investigation https://accompong.news
- Jamaica Bauxite Institute — institutional mandate, red mud stockpile volumes, REE concentration data https://jbi.gov.jm
Accompong Network News is an independent investigative media outlet. Editorial questions and responses from Minister Floyd Green or his office can be directed to the newsdesk at accompong.news
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