Ramaco’s Rare Earth Claims Draw Fierce Scrutiny From Geologists, Short-Sellers

RANCHESTER — The clouds parted and the sun came out for Ramaco Resources this past summer. 

On July 11, the horizon dawned gray and rainy, but by the time a crowd of mining industry insiders and political dignitaries assembled for the grand opening of the Brook Mine, the sun was shining and the audience was treated to a dose of blue sky. 

"What we have discovered beneath this soil are enough rare earths that we may be able to supply this country for well over the next 100 years,” Randall Atkins told the crowd. 

As a founder of Ramaco and the face of the operation, Atkins played master of ceremonies for a gathering that included U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Gov. Mark Gordon and Wyoming’s entire congressional delegation. 

There were coal miners too, there to witness the start of an ambitious transformation. 

Ramaco’s surge appeared to begin with a wave of positive headlines in 2024 about the company’s potential to be a domestic solution to break the stranglehold of China and other foreign suppliers of rare earths and critical minerals. 

“From Wall Street to Rare Earth: How Randall Atkins Turned a $2 Million Coal Mine into a $37 Billion Rare Earth Elements Bonanza,” wrote miningir.com, an industry news site. 

At the grand opening, Atkins told the crowd, “We think we have the largest unconventional deposit of rare earth in North America.” 

This month, the company continued that optimistic drumbeat. 

In a Nov. 13 email to Cowboy State Daily, Atkins delivered several reports and documents, some detailing what he characterized as really good news about one critical mineral in particular: scandium. 

A silvery-white element with the strength of titanium and the lightness of aluminum, scandium might be the most strategically important mineral you've never heard of. 

Ramaco argues it’s the secret ingredient that enables 6G wireless networks to achieve microsecond processing — fast enough to coordinate drone swarms in real-time combat — and the critical component that allows fighter jets to shed weight while gaining strength. 

The U.S. now imports 100% of its scandium supply, with China controlling 80% of global production.

In September, according to Ramaco, the Defense Logistics Agency revealed just how desperate the situation has become by agreeing to pay a Canadian operation $6.25 million per ton for scandium oxide.

That price — much higher than some industry estimates — is what Atkins points to when critics question the claims Ramaco is making to investors. 

On Oct. 23, an investing watchdog group in New York published a report calling Ramaco’s Brook Mine a fraud.

When asked about the report, Atkins said Cowboy State Daily had been duped by investors at Wolfpack Research and, “drawn into this to play a role on their behalf attacking a Wyoming project.”

So who is Wolfpack Research? 

Wyoming Hustle? 

Back in July at the grand opening just off Interstate 90 between Ranchester and Sheridan, Atkins told the crowd, “The Brook Mine will be America's mine. America will meet that challenge. This one mine can break our reliance on China."

No one is disputing China’s control of the market for critical minerals and rare earths used to manufacture the technology of the future. 

Then when Dan David, founder of Wolfpack Research, started hearing about the Brook Mine, he was reminded of some other coal mines in China that were pitching themselves to American investors. 

In the 2018 documentary “The China Hustle,” David takes on a variety of Chinese companies that pumped up their values with fraudulent claims, then left investors holding the bag when the companies’ stock value plummeted. 

David features prominently in the film as one in a group of skeptical analysts who rely on surveillance video to reveal fraudulent, over-valued coal mines and factories. 

The images collected by him and other watchdogs showed a factory ramping up production when a group of investors arrived for a visit and then shutting everything down when they left. 

David told Cowboy State Daily that essentially, he believes the same thing is happening at the Brook Mine — that Ramaco is using the mine as a prop to separate unwary investors from their money. 

That’s why this summer, he deployed another drone.

David said the drone images show that despite the mine's "opening" this past summer, there is no observable mining happening there.

“If you watch ‘The China Hustle,’ you'll see in China 10 years ago, I was flying drones over coal mines,” David said, explaining why he hired a drone operator to gather surveillance images of the Brook Mine. 

In the Wolfpack Research report released in October, David’s firm warned investors, “We would say the Brook Mine is digging a worthless hole in the ground, but drone footage we have taken weekly reveals that METC (Ramaco) isn’t even actively digging despite a ‘grand opening’ in mid-July.” 

Ramaco counters by insisting David is a short-seller who published “a report with falsehoods or distortions trying to make the stock price fall so they profit.”

David bristles at the accusation, stating “The China Hustle” was produced by the skilled team behind the documentary “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room.” 

"I've been doing this for 15 years. I've exposed over $20 billion in fraud. They made a documentary where I was the lead protagonist,” David said, noting the producers and distributors of “The China Hustle” included respected figures like celebrity entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Amblin Entertainment and Magnolia Pictures. 

On social media recently, Wolfpack Research posted, “We are short Ramaco Resources (METC) as we believe it has manipulated key data to make its rare earths project, Brook Mine, appear profitable to investors.”

By “short” David means his firm is betting Ramaco’s stock will go down in value — and he will profit if it does. 

“We spoke to 15 experts and veterans of the mining industry, including 6 Ph.D.s, with over 400 years of combined industry experience,” added Wolfpack Research. “Not one of them thought Brook Mine was economically feasible. 

"Some did not mince words, describing the project as a ‘pump and dump’, ‘modern day fraud’, ‘shit show’, and ‘science project.’”

Three Mining Guys

Wolfpack Research isn’t the only group raising red flags about Ramaco. 

But Ramaco also isn’t alone in touting itself, citing support from major Wall Street firms and analysts. 

Ramaco also pointed to a research and development agreement it said it signed with the Department of Energy’s national labs to assist the company in developing the Brook Mine. 

“We will be able to draw on researchers and their testing equipment from several of the DOE’s labs around the country. This is the first effort by the DOE on a project at this scope,” Atkins told Cowboy State Daily. 

Yet, the skeptics remain. 

Three mining professionals with more than a century of combined industry experience reached out to Cowboy State Daily starting back in July, and in a series of interviews shared their findings about the company.

Keith Laskowski, a Montana-based mining consultant with more than 40 years of experience, said the recent short-seller report from Wolfpack "validates many of the concerns I have observed during the course of the last two years in watching the Ramaco program evolve." 

Laskowski went further, comparing the situation to another film about mining fraud: "This is textbook. This is a repeat of the biggest scam in the gold mining business that occurred in 1997," he said, referencing the infamous Bre-X scandal depicted in the film "Gold." 

Starring Matthew McConaughey, it follows Kenny Wells, a down-on-his-luck prospector who partners with an unscrupulous geologist to find gold in the Indonesian jungle. 

They discover what appears to be a massive gold deposit, propelling their stock to soaring heights and attracting major investment.

When it comes to hype vs. reality with Ramaco, said David Hammond, a Colorado mineral economist,  "More people are starting to wake up.” 

Hammond said that his opinion is that the Brook Mine project is "so over the top as far as its level of misleading us, and just really bogus numbers in there that no one should put any credibility on it." 

Marc LeVier, a mineral process engineer with more than 40 years of experience, including 22 years at Newmont Mining Corp., characterized Ramaco's approach as deceptive. 

"I came from an industry that was full of integrity and full of honesty and ethics. That's why I took an interest in it, is because they're just overhyping,” LeVier said.

He’s particularly critical of how Ramaco, according to his assessment, bypassed standard mining development procedures. 

"The whole problem is they're not following a true project development scenario in terms of what you would go through to develop a real mine," he said, questioning the status of technical reports, studies and process testing before the company announced plans for a pilot plant. 

All three geologists dove deep into the numbers, offering analysis that contradicts Ramaco’s marketing materials. 

Their concerns boil down to whether or not the world really wants as much scandium as Ramaco claims it will produce. 

Low estimates cited by Wolfpack Research put the total worldwide demand for scandium oxide at just $25 million annually, with one veteran characterizing global need as "less than one semitruck." 

Atkins and Ramaco dispute each point, insisting the Brook Mine remains a promising project that’s moving ahead and according to schedule. 

“We started mining in July and mined enough coal REE (rare earth elements) feedstock to supply our pilot plant needs for some time,” asserted Atkins.

Last Word

The emerging market for domestically produced rare earths and critical minerals like scandium is a brave new world for mining companies, investors and economists trying to make sense of it all. 

When asked for his take on the Ramaco situation, Rob Godby, a natural resource economist at the University of Wyoming, told Cowboy State Daily that so far, it’s not clear if the short-seller report and other scrutiny of Ramaco is driving down its stock price. 

“To be clear, their stock price is not in free fall, but it has fallen,” Godby told Cowboy State Daily on Nov. 3. 

On Nov. 14, the stock price sat at $21.67, down about 50% since mid-October. 

But that’s not necessarily because of the Brook Mine or Wolfpack’s claims, he said.

“That could be due to a lot of factors, including expectations of tariffs. For example, when there was an expectation of 100% tariffs, a U.S.-based company could be worth a lot more,” said Godby. 

The UW business professor added, “When the president then revised his tariff announcement to say that he and China are working on something and tariffs wouldn’t be rising to that level, the same news could cause the stock price to fall again as international competitors are still in play.”

Godby agreed with Ramaco’s critics on one point: “Mining is a risky business with lots of optimism that often is not fulfilled later. Of course, that has not changed since before Wyoming became a state.”

The debate over the Brook Mine could come down to whether or not the price of scandium will reach levels anticipated by Ramaco and its investors. 

"I understand I have a negative point of view, and that's never popular with anybody,” Wolfpack’s David told Cowboy State Daily. “Randall has his point of view. I have my point of view. You are free to believe in his point of view. Or mine. That's what makes the market."

In his correspondence with Cowboy State Daily, Atkins remained upbeat about his project’s potential, and that others — from federal government officials to major voices in the financial world — see that as well.

“We have raised over $600 million in financing since July,” he said. “About $550 million was in a combination of a stock and separate convertible debt offering underwritten and led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, as well as a number of other financial investment firms. 

"Needless to say, a great deal of due diligence was done on the project in connection with these capital offerings.”

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.