A pair of Wyoming ventures developing two different types of rare earth processing recently provided details about capital investment attached to each project. The news arrived as part of a marketing wave pushed out by rare earth mining companies pitching themselves to investors.
This week, Wyoming's Bear Lodge rare earth mining and refining project announced $553 million in debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM).
The Export-Import Bank was one of the agencies named in President Donald Trump's March 20 executive order directing federal agencies to expedite permitting and funding for critical minerals.
"We appreciate this EXIM expression of interest and view it as further legitimization of our significant efforts to date as well as our plan for the future of our Bear Lodge Project," stated Ken Mushinski, president and CEO of Rare Element Resources, in a March 20 statement.
RER’s processing and separation demonstration plant “is a timely and necessary step,” according to the statement, in the company’s move toward refining ore into marketable quantities of rare earth minerals.
Project Outside Sheridan
At the Ramaco Resources facility near Ranchester, the company is leveraging a $6.1 million matching grant from the Wyoming Energy Authority to develop a resource stream of rare earth and critical minerals from coal deposits.
“The interesting thing is our deposit is frankly contained in mineralized portions of coal,” Randall Atkins, chairman and CEO of Ramaco Resources, told Cowboy State Daily from company headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky, on Tuesday.
Atkins agreed that Wyoming is well positioned to serve the growing demand for rare earth minerals, given it has two processing facilities in the works.
Ramaco brings another advantage, said Atkins.
“A lot of these other companies have mining claims that they basically don't actually own the property, nor are they actually permitted to mine,” said Atkins. “There's a lot of time and a lot of money that has to go into it before they're in the same position that we're in.”
As Atkins sees the marketplace unfolding, he predicted Ramaco’s 15,800-acre Brook Mine, “Would probably end up selling some of our production to perhaps the Defense Department or various Defense Department related contractors who already are using rare earths that are being procured from foreign sources. We have become a domestic source of supply for those.”
Other Players In The Space
In Colorado, USA Rare Earth recently said it reached a significant milestone in its Texas Round Top mine project by successfully producing a sample of dysprosium oxide with a purity of 99.1%.
Dysprosium oxide enhances neodymium-based permanent magnets, improving their resistance to demagnetization at high temperatures, which is crucial for wind turbines and electric vehicles, according to company materials.
There’s also news of rare earth exploration around coal mines around the towns of Rangely and Delta.
Outside Salmon, Idaho, the rare earth element Thorium is found in abundance on nearby public lands. Thorium strengthens magnesium alloys and tungsten filaments in incandescent bulbs and welding electrodes, and Idaho Strategic Resources is exploring deposits to the east and west of Salmon.
In Montana, on U.S. Forest Service land near Sheep Creek in Ravalli County, U.S. Critical Materials said it recently identified deposits of lanthanum, neodymium, and praseodymium.
Marketing materials for the company calls it a "geological unicorn" due to the exceptionally high concentrations.
Then there’s Utah. A University of Utah team found rare earth deposits last year in active coal mines rimming the Uinta coal belt in the Book Cliffs.
The Wyoming Edge?
Amid the current hype coming from mining companies looking for investment in rare earth projects, the state of Wyoming is mentioned.
On March 13, the company American Rare Earths touted the edge it said it’s gained by doing business in Wyoming.
Melissa Sanderson, the non-executive director at American Rare Earths and co-chair of the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI), said Wyoming is, “One of the few American states that gained complete control over the mining permitting process.”
In an interview with InvestorNews.com, Sanderson said the Halleck Creek Project near Wheatland has an advantage because operating solely on Wyoming state lands accelerates the permitting process as American Rare Earths develops what Sanderson described as, “a large size consistent grade asset.”
“This makes us the best positioned rare earth resource in America to come to market,” claimed Sanderson.
Joe Evers, president of Wyoming Rare USA, agrees.
Wyoming Rare USA is the subsidiary of American Rare Earths that's developing the Halleck Creek Project near Wheatland.
Evers, who grew up in Sheridan, said the state and industry pulling together to develop rare earth mining, “Is a recognition that there is an urgent need for these critical materials."
"It is just a collective recognition that we are at a point in time where we have to solve this and we have the resources, the tools and the ability to do it.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
