RER confirms it's going ahead with Upton demo plant

Rare Element Resources (RER) has finally received the $21.9 million funding promised by the U.S. Department of Energy. The company announced last week that its next goal is to construct a demonstration plant in Upton that will process and separate rare earth elements from ore that was previously stockpiled at the Bear Lodge Project in Crook County.

“The award represents approximately 50% of the total estimated project costs. Securing the remainder of the funds is the responsibility of Rare Element Resources,” says George Byers, RER.

To raise this money, the company intends to launch a $25 million rights offering of common shares. As of the close of business on October 19, each holder of RER common shares will be issued one non-transferable subscription right for each common share they own.

Each subscription right will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the company at 24 cents per share. The rights offering will also include an oversubscription privilege, which entitles shareholders who exercise all of their subscription rights to purchase additional common shares subject to availability.

According to the press release, “The Company plans to use the net proceeds from the rights offering for the permitting, licensing, engineering, construction and operation of a rare earth separation and processing demonstration plant near the Company’s Bear Lodge Project and other general corporate purposes.”

RER, along with team members General Atomics and its affiliates and LNV, an Ardurra Group company as engineering and construction subcontractor, was notified at the beginning of this year that it had been selected as a potential award recipient, subject to finalization of pre-award negotiations.

“Those negotiations have been successfully completed and the award has been finalized,” states the press release. RER expects to finalize contractual arrangements with General Atomics over the next few weeks to perform work on the demonstration plant project.

“The planned demonstration plant will produce commercial-grade neodymium/praseodymium (“Nd/Pr”) rare earth high-purity oxide in use in producing high-strength permanent magnets utilizing our proprietary processing and separation technology,” says Randall Scott, President and CEO.

“These high-strength permanent magnets are a key component in the manufacture of electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines, among other technology uses. We believe our rare earth demonstration project is timely to meet the growing demand of these products.

At this time, RER is anticipating that design, permitting, licensing and construction of the demo plant will be finalized within 18 to 26 months. Processing the stockpiled ore will then follow for a 12 to 14 month period, creating a total timeline of 40 months.

“This award plus the successful operation of the Upton plant will represent a huge step forward to securing America’s and allied nations’ goal of creating a secure rare earths supply chain,” says Byers. 

“After many years of working closely with people all over Wyoming, we are extremely proud that the crucial first two links – the Bear Lodge Mine and the Upton separation and process demonstration plant – in this chain will be in Wyoming.”