American Rare Earths Inc., which recently disclosed that it found substantially more rich deposits of rare earth minerals than originally envisioned in 2023, said Wednesday that it has raised nearly $9 million to advance its mining project near Wheatland.
The news is significant because several rare earth minerals companies in Wyoming are rushing to get their shovels in the ground first and move to commercial-scale production on their mining and processing operations.
The $8.9 million raised by the company accelerates work originally contemplated in 2025, a full year ahead of schedule, said Donald Swartz, CEO of American Rare Earths, in a statement provided to Cowboy State Daily.
The rare earth minerals bonanza is the result of consumers starved for magnet metals integral to the green transition to electric vehicles, wind turbines, consumer goods, robots and military drones, missiles and chips needed for sophisticated computing power.
The market has long been dominated by China.
Two Test Pits
On Tuesday, a rival Wyoming company, Rare Element Resources, disclosed efforts to complete a rare earth minerals demonstration plant in Upton in northeast Wyoming this summer, and that its deposits may be richer than previously reported.
That company also said that it could need more money to finish the project, even though the $44 million project is getting about half from the U.S. Department of Energy and $4.4 million from the Wyoming Energy Authority.
American Rare Earths, the miner with operations near Wheatland, is the U.S.-based unit of an Australian-founded exploration company working in Wyoming.
The company also disclosed Wednesday that it has filed for a license to “explore for minerals by dozing” with Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality. The special license may be issued by DEQ for a one-year period without a permit.
American Rare Earths wants to dig two test pits in the Halleck Creek mine site in Albany County.
The test mining will allow the company to buy the necessary volumes of ore to be processed at a pilot processing facility, which is yet to be built.
Next Steps
The license to explore, coupled with the test work recently updated from its past drilling campaign, represent the next steps to scaling an operable mine and processing facility for Halleck Creek, renamed recently as the Cowboy State Mine, Swartz said.
“As this management team has demonstrated since its arrival last year, we have no intention to rest on one’s laurels,” he said.
The company also submitted a permit application to DEQ for a revised drilling notice at Halleck Creek to permit locations for additional drilling on state leases in the Cowboy State Mine area.
Swartz said that he views the money raised as a “demonstration of confidence and support” for the company’s “vision to build the next major rare earth company and to play a key role securing supply for the United States.”
American Rare Earths wants to mine and process these magnet metals, particularly neodymium and praseodymium, through its Wyoming Rare (USA) Inc. unit.
That business controls 367 mining claims on 6,320 acres of a mix of state, federal and private land across the Halleck Creek Project area near Wheatland, and four Wyoming mineral leases on 1,844 acres on the same project.
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
