Magnetics Business & Technology - September/October 2023 - 28

INDUSTRY NEWS
USA Rare Earth Targets 2024 to Begin Magnet Production in Oklahoma
Round Top prospect in Texas slated for rare earth production in 2025 or 2026
USA Rare Earth plans to start up neodymium magnet production
next year at its plant in Stillwater, Oklahoma and to be supplying
it with rare earth feedstock mined at its own Round Rock
property in Texas in late 2025 or early 2026, reports CEO Tom
Schneberger to Magnetics Magazine.
Tom Schneberger, CEO of
USA Rare Earth
" At our Stillwater, Oklahoma facility,
we are currently reconstructing
existing assets that previously
produced rare earth magnets in
the US. Our first magnet production
line will be producing magnets
in 2024, " said Schneberger,
referring to the magnet production
equipment which his company
purchased in 2020 from Hitachi
Metals America in North Carolina
and is now recommissioning. The
initial production target is about
2,000 tons per year.
" We will use our production ramp up, during 2024, to qualify
the magnets we produce at customers who reserve that initial
production line's capacity. During our early customer conversations,
we can already see that customers will need us to add
subsequent production lines to ramp up our Stillwater facility to
its 4,800 MT/yr capacity as quick as possible. "
28 Magnetics Business & Technology * September/October 2023
" We are very excited about the round top deposit located in Sierra
Blanca, Texas, " said Schneberger in response to a request from
Magnetic Magazines for an update on its status. " It is a large, unique
and well characterized deposit that contains all of the important
rare earth elements used in magnets. We are still in the engineering
phase of this project and so far we are on track for a late 2025 or early
2026 startup at which time it will supply our magnet production. In
the interim, he noted, our magnet production will be supplied with
material we are purchasing from multiple suppliers outside of China. "
The site is located southwest of El Paso near the border with Mexico.
USA Rare Earth owns an 80% interest in the Round Top deposit of
heavy rare earth, lithium and other critical minerals deposit located
in Hudspeth County, West Texas. It purchased the stake from Texas
Mineral Resources Corp. in 2021, the same year it raised an additional
$50 million in a Series C funding round.
With its development of the processing facility and ownership of
a scalable, sintered neo-magnet manufacturing system, USARE is
poised to become a front-running domestic supplier of critical raw
materials and magnets fueling the green tech revolution. The company
has said that it plans to invest more than $100 million in developing
the manufacturing facility and then will be in position to utilize
its owned facilities and technology to convert rare earth oxides into
metals, magnets and other specialty materials. It plans to produce
high-purity separated rare earth powders at Round Top to supply the
Stillwater plant. Round Top is also projected to produce 10,000 tons
of lithium a year for electric vehicle batteries.
www.MagneticsMag.com
http://www.MagneticsMag.com
Magnetics Business & Technology - September/October 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Magnetics Business & Technology - September/October 2023
