The White House Just Declared a National Emergency Over a Material Most Investors Have Never Heard Of
Forge Resources is developing the coal that makes steel possible, at the exact moment governments are scrambling to secure supply
Not investment advice. Disseminated on behalf of Forge Resources Corp.
(CSE: FRG | OTCQB: FRGGF | FSE: 5YZ)
When most people hear “coal,” they think power plants. They think energy transition debates. They think of a commodity the world is leaving behind.
They’re thinking of the wrong coal.
There’s another kind of coal that has nothing to do with electricity and everything to do with steel. It’s called metallurgical coal, or met coal, and it’s not a fuel you can swap out for solar panels or batteries. It’s a chemical input. Without it, you literally cannot produce steel. There is no industrial-scale replacement.
Every warship being launched across global navies. Every fighter jet rolling off production lines. Every tank, every armored vehicle, every bridge, every skyscraper. All of it is built from steel, and all of it depends on met coal.
The world produces around 1.9 billion tonnes of steel every year. And in April 2026, the White House declared a national emergency under Executive Order 14156 and invoked the Defense Production Act to expand coal supply chain capacity. The government is saying, plainly, that the U.S. does not have enough of this material and it’s a threat to national defense.
That’s not a political opinion. That’s policy.
Forge Resources (🇨🇦FRG / 🇺🇸FRGGF) is developing a fully permitted met coal project at exactly the moment two governments are scrambling to secure supply.
A supply crisis years in the making
Met coal prices tell the story. In 2023, met coal traded around $180 per tonne. In 2024, $200. In 2025, $215. In 2026, it’s pushed into the $240 per tonne range.
This isn’t a spike. It’s a structural deficit. The biggest driver isn’t demand, it’s a lack of new supply. Years of underinvestment in new coal mines mean there simply aren’t enough projects coming online to meet what the world needs. Meanwhile, military spending is at record highs and infrastructure buildouts are accelerating globally.
Supply is shrinking. Demand is growing. And the price is reflecting a reality that most investors haven’t caught up to yet.
Two governments, one message
The policy alignment here is hard to ignore.
In 2023, Colombia formally designated metallurgical coal as a strategic mineral. In 2025, the United States classified met coal as a “critical material” through the Department of Energy and added it to the official U.S. Critical Minerals List. Then the White House invoked the Defense Production Act.
Now layer in the trade reality: the United States is Colombia’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding $50 billion in 2025. One country elevated the material at the policy level, and its largest trading partner upgraded it into a national security input.
That’s not coincidence. That’s alignment. And Forge’s flagship project sits right in the middle of that supply chain.
La Estrella: fully permitted and advancing
Forge controls an 80% interest in the La Estrella coal project in Santander, Colombia. “Fully permitted” is a phrase that gets thrown around loosely in mining, but in this case it means something specific: La Estrella has cleared all regulatory hurdles and holds a permit to produce up to 180,000 tonnes of coal per year with a 45-year mine life.
Getting a mining permit in any country can take 5 to 10 years and cost millions of dollars. Many projects never get there at all. Forge already has theirs. That’s a competitive advantage that’s hard to replicate and easy to undervalue.
The project contains eight known coal seams, four metallurgical and four thermal. Lab testing has confirmed premium coal quality: high calorific value, very low sulphur, and a Free Swelling Index (FSI) of 4, which means the coal is suitable for blending in steelmaking. This is exactly the product the market is paying $240 per tonne for.
Near-term revenue, not just exploration
Unlike most junior mining companies that are years away from generating any cash, Forge is advancing toward an initial 20,000-tonne bulk sample. A bulk sample is a step before commercial production. It generates actual revenue while proving the mine works at scale.
At current met coal prices, even a 20,000-tonne sample represents meaningful value. And it moves Forge from “story” to “execution” in a way the market tends to reward.
The CEO wrote a $500K personal check
Forge’s last private placement was significantly oversubscribed, coming in 45% above target, with strong insider participation. CEO PJ Murphy personally invested $500,000 in the round.
When a CEO puts half a million dollars of his own money into the company’s financing, that tells you something about conviction. Management’s money is on the line right alongside outside shareholders.
A team that’s raised close to $1 billion collectively
The people behind Forge have done this before. Gordon Neal, a Director, has 30-plus years in mining and was a founding member of MAG Silver, VP at Silvercorp Metals, and President of New Pacific Metals. He’s personally raised over $750M in equity financing for mining companies across his career. CEO PJ Murphy brings 25-plus years of management and investment experience. Technical Advisor Mario Alonso Alzate Ferrer has 50 years of expertise in Colombian coal mining. And COO Cole McClay built the Forge project from the ground up before transitioning to operations.
This isn’t a team assembling a pitch deck. It’s a team executing on a fully permitted asset with the macro wind at their backs.
The bottom line
Forge Resources (🇨🇦FRG / 🇺🇸FRGGF) is developing a fully permitted met coal project in Colombia at a moment when two governments have formally designated the material as critical to national security, met coal prices have climbed from $180 to $240 per tonne in three years, and global supply is structurally short.
La Estrella is permitted for 180,000 tonnes per year with a 45-year mine life. Eight coal seams with lab-confirmed premium quality. A bulk sample advancing toward near-term revenue. A team that’s collectively raised close to $1 billion. And a CEO who put $500,000 of his own money in.
The world needs steel. Steel needs met coal. And the supply pipeline is thin. That’s not a thesis that requires a lot of imagination. It just requires paying attention to a part of the supply chain most investors have overlooked entirely.
The ticker is FRG on the CSE, or FRGGF on the US OTC.
Disclaimer: Disseminated on behalf of Forge Resources Corp. This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. It is part of a paid marketing campaign. Cashu Group was compensated by Forge Resources Corp. for the creation and distribution of this content. Investing in junior mining companies involves significant risk, including the risk of loss of capital. All project details, coal quality results, and policy references come from the company’s public disclosures and government sources. Always do your own due diligence and consult a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions.