Magnetics Business & Technology - May/June 2022 - 39

INDUSTRY NEWS
MP Materials Awarded $35M DoD Contract for Rare Earth Processing
and vertically integrated U.S. magnetics supply chain.
In December 2021, MP Materials entered into a long-term
agreement with General Motors to supply domestically sourced
and manufactured rare earth materials, alloy, and finished
magnets for the electric motors used in the GMC HUMMER
EV, Cadillac LYRIQ, Chevrolet Silverado EV, and more than a
dozen models using GM's Ultium Platform.
" The U.S. needs to continue to push the scientific envelope to
develop secure, reliable, and affordable domestic source critical
minerals used in defense and commercial manufacturing in
order to reduce its dependence on foreign sources in a time of
global economic competition, " said Deborah Rosenblum who
is performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Industrial Base Policy.
To meet growing magnetics demand and promote supply chain
resiliency, MP Materials' processing facilities at Mountain
Pass will accept qualified third-party feedstock and end-of-life
magnets, in addition to processing the ore extracted from and
beneficiated at Mountain Pass. The site is a closed loop, zerodischarge
rare earth production facility with a dry tailings process
that recycles more than one billion liters of water per year.
MP Materials Corp. has been awarded a $35 million contract
through the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Industrial Base
Analysis and Sustainment Program to support the construction
of a commercial scale processing facility for heavy rare earth
elements (HREE) at Mountain Pass.
Located in southeastern California near Las Vegas, the mine
is the only active and scaled rare earth production site in North
America. LHREEs have higher atomic weights and are generally
less abundant than light rare earth elements (LREEs). They
are essential inputs to many critical defense and commercial
technologies, particularly permanent magnets instrumental to
the performance of electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, and
missile systems.
In a separate contract awarded in December 2020, the DoD
committed $9.6 million to MP Materials' Stage II optimization,
a project underway to restore LREE processing capabilities to
Mountain Pass. The ability to process HREEs alongside LREEs
will enable the company to extract and refine all rare earths
required to manufacture high-performance permanent magnets.
It will also enable the company to recycle all recoverable rare
earths from end-of-life magnets and magnet production scrap,
increasing the resiliency and environmental sustainability of the
domestic supply base.
" The ability to mine, process, and refine rare earths at Mountain
Pass is foundational to a national effort to secure the U.S. rare
earth supply chain, " said MP Materials Chairman and CEO,
James Litinsky. " We thank the Department of Defense for its
confidence and support. "
In addition to its mining and processing operation at Mountain
Pass, MP Materials is developing a rare earth metal, alloy and
magnet manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Materials
sourced from Mountain Pass will be transformed into manufactured
products at this new facility, restoring a wholly domestic
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MP Materials is the largest producer of rare earth materials in
the Western Hemisphere but currently has to ship much of its
output to China for processing. Intent on changing this situation,
the company is building its processing and downstream production
operations.
See www.mpmaterials.com
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May/June 2022 * Magnetics Business & Technology 39
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