Why Lockheed Martin Just Signed a Deal for an Obscure Metal

Lockheed Martin Corp. agreed to tentatively negotiate the purchase of up to 15 tonnes of scandium oxide a year — roughly 33,000 pounds — for up to 10 years from the southeastern Nebraska mining company NioCorp Developments, according to an Aug. 4, 2026, announcement by NioCorp. A tonne is a metric ton, which is 1,000 kilograms or about 2,204.6 pounds.

Scandium is one of the U.S. defense supply chain’s narrowest chokepoints.

A Metal Nobody Mines on Purpose

Scandium is unusual even among rare earth elements. Global production runs somewhere between 15 tonnes and 25 tonnes a year, according to the Modern War Institute at West Point, — a tiny figure compared to almost any other industrial metal — and virtually none of it comes from a dedicated scandium mine. It’s produced almost entirely as a byproduct of titanium dioxide production, nickel processing and uranium mining, according to the same Modern War Institute analysis, which means supply can’t simply be ramped up by drilling more wells or opening more pits.

What makes scandium valuable, despite the tiny volumes involved, is what it does to aluminum. Adding scandium to an aluminum alloy in concentrations as small as 0.1% to 0.5% by weight produces a disproportionate jump in strength — and critically, lets aluminum parts be welded together rather than riveted, without losing structural integrity in the weld zone the way conventional aerospace aluminum does, according to the Institute for Rare Earths and Metals, a German industry research group that tracks the scandium market.

That property alone can cut 10% to 15% of the weight out of a welded aluminum structure — using the same institute’s figures cited above — which, in a fighter jet, translates to range, fuel efficiency and payload capacity. The Soviet Union figured this out first, using scandium in the MiG-29 as far back as the Cold War, and kept the application secret for years, the Institute for Rare Earths and Metals reported.

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The China Problem Is Real, But It’s Not as Simple as It Sounds

China placed scandium metal, alloys, oxides and compounds under export licensing controls on April 4, 2025, alongside six other medium and heavy rare earth elements, and while Beijing has since resumed issuing licenses to selected exporters, shipments of scandium and a related element, yttrium, have remained sharply reduced compared to pre-restriction levels, the aerospace trade outlet AeroTime reported in an analysis of the Lockheed Martin deal.

But direct Chinese exports aren’t actually where most of America’s scandium has been coming from. AeroTime, citing U.S. Geological Survey records, reported that 89% of U.S. scandium oxide imports between 2021 and 2024 came from Japan, where the material had been refined from Philippine feedstock, against just 11% arriving directly from China. Beijing’s real leverage runs through its dominance of global production and refining rather than direct shipments to the United States: The Modern War Institute puts that refining dominance at more than 90% of global refined scandium chemical production and effectively all metallized scandium used in advanced semiconductor applications.

That refining chokepoint is still significant to an aerospace industry already straining to keep up with production demand from Boeing, Airbus and the Pentagon’s own fighter programs, working with a material that has essentially no substitute at the performance level modern aircraft require.

The U.S. has already begun hedging against that risk outside Lockheed Martin’s deal with NioCorp deal: AeroTime reported that the Defense Logistics Agency announced plans in September 2025 to buy more than 6,000 kilograms of scandium oxide for the National Defense Stockpile from Rio Tinto’s processing complex in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, over five years, at a value of up to $40 million, while the Canada Growth Fund separately committed roughly $18 million the following month to expand that plant — North America’s only scandium oxide producer — to 9 tonnes a year.

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division, the company’s advanced projects unit responsible for programs from the U-2 to the F-117 to current next-generation fighter work, has been prototyping aluminum-scandium fighter components as the F-35 production line scales up and next-generation aircraft move through development, according to NioCorp’s August 4 announcement of the deal. The Modern War Institute has described the broader situation bluntly, characterizing the scandium supply gap as a structural vulnerability across the entire U.S. defense industrial base rather than a problem specific to any one program.

What NioCorp Is Building

NioCorp is building the Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in Nebraska, primarily targeting niobium and titanium alongside scandium, with rare earth production also under evaluation, according to the company’s announcement of the deal with Lockheed Martin. NioCorp already produces a 4% aluminum-scandium master alloy domestically, using scandium oxide sourced from the existing global market, and plans to eventually produce roughly 100 tonnes a year of scandium oxide directly from Elk Creek once the project is financed and built, NioCorp said, a figure that alone would represent a meaningful fraction of current global supply.

The Lockheed Martin MOU builds on an existing joint program between the two companies, funded through a $10 million Department of War award under Title III of the Defense Production Act, according to NioCorp’s release. NioCorp and the Pentagon have described the effort as an attempt to build “America’s first-ever integrated scandium-to-warfighter supply chain”: domestic ore, domestic processing and domestic alloy production, feeding directly into domestic weapons platforms without a Chinese link anywhere in the chain.

What’s Confirmed, and What Isn’t Yet

It’s worth being precise about what this agreement actually is. NioCorp’s Aug. 4 press release describes it as a non-binding memorandum of understanding, meaning both companies have agreed to negotiate a definitive supply contract in good faith — not that scandium is already flowing to Lockheed Martin production lines.

NioCorp’s release is explicit that no final agreement or terms may be reached at all, and the Elk Creek Project still requires full financing and construction, per the same release, before it can produce scandium oxide at any meaningful scale, let alone the roughly 100 tonnes a year NioCorp is targeting.