In May of 2023, Ramaco Resources announced that (with the help of the National Energy Technology Laboratory and Weir International, Inc.) they had discovered a deposit of magnetic rare earth elements within their Wyoming-based ‘Brook Mine.' Their press release stated that “core samples from the Brook Mine represent highly promising, world-class MREE (middle rare earth elements) and HREE (heavy rare earth elements) accumulations.” Before the discovery, the mine was valued to be worth $2 million. Now it could be worth as much as $37 billion.
MREEs and HREEs are key to producing products such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, semiconductors, missile systems, and solar cells. The discovery comes at an opportune time, as China is set to restrict America’s access to its rare earth supply and services. According to the 2022 U.S. Geological Survey China owns 36% of the global rare earth reserves, while America owns 1.5% (this percentage does not take into account the newly found REEs within the Brook Mine).
It’s estimated that just ¼ of the Brook Mine has 1.1 million metric tons of rare-earth oxides, while the potential of the remaining ¾ of the mine is undetermined.
The major hurdle for Ramaco Resources is building a processing plant to refine the REEs. Normally rare earth elements mined in the U.S. would be shipped off to China where the processing infrastructure for the materials is more robust, but Randall Atkins (Ramaco CEO) plans to utilize a “mine to magnets” strategy. The plan is to domestically streamline mining the rare-earth elements, process them, and manufacture items needed for the transition to green-energy. The U.S. is in the process of incentivizing such initiatives with the rollout of the ‘Rare Earth Magnet Manufacturing Production Tax Credit Act of 2023’, where companies will be given generous tax credits for “domestic production of rare earth magnets.”
Luisa Moreno of Defense Metals (a company that also works with rare earths) was quoted saying “Expertise has to be developed. China has it, we have to develop this side and do it in a competitive and efficient way.” - in regards to the American rare earth supply chain.
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