RER gets $4.4 million grant from WEA

Rare Element Resources (RER) has announced the completion of a $4.4 million grant from the Wyoming Energy Authority that will be used to assist with the cost of constructing the company’s planned demonstration plant in Upton.

The grant is a cost reimbursement award for future expenditures related to construction of the rare earth processing and separation demo plant, which the company has described as the next step in the process of establishing a rare earth mine in the Bearlodge Mountains and an associated processing plant, likely also in Upton.

“Rare earth elements are of the utmost importance to our country’s energy security and something we must continue to advance in order to achieve equal footing in this global market,” said Rob Creager, Executive Director of the Wyoming Energy Authority, in a press release announcing the grant’s completion.

“Wyoming has an opportunity to be a leader in providing these critical resources to our country. We are committed to the continued support of projects like these that will propel not only our own communities but our entire nation forward.”

The demo plant, which will further test the company’s proprietary extraction technology, is also to be funded through a $21.9 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy. The technology is described as capable of producing high-purity neodymium/praseodymium (Nd/Pr) oxide, which is used in high-strength permanent magnets.

The data from this test will be used to design and complete an economic evaluation for a full-size commercial plant, as well as the Bear Lodge Project mine site. RER says it will also validate the cost and environmental benefits of this proprietary process as compared to traditional recovery methods.

Construction has not yet begun on the plant. RER and its majority shareholder, General Atomics, have now completed the final design and await the final significant license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) this summer.

At this time, RER is expecting to begin construction later this year and begin operations at the mine in mid-2024, using stockpiled ore already extracted from the mine site near Sundance.

RER has also expressed thanks for the support of the state legislature, which passed a bill earlier this year to advance the process for Wyoming to assume certain licensing and regulatory aspects of the rare earth industry.

The bill, according to a press release from RER, amends the existing agreement status between Wyoming and the NRC to allow the state permitting and regulatory authority related to rare earth element source materials. Once approved by the NRC, Wyoming will have primacy for the NRC’s licensing of Wyoming-based rare earth processing facilities.

“We are very pleased with the many affirmative steps that the state of Wyoming is taking in support of the rare earth industry and the Company. The Bear Lodge Project has one of the highest-grade rare earth deposits in North America, and its location positions Wyoming to be a key player in developing a domestic rare earth supply chain,” said Brent Berg, President and CEO of RER.

“Construction of the demonstration plant is the next step in advancing the company’s innovative recovery and separation technology, developed with our world-class technology partner, General Atomics. The plant will provide data critical for the design of a commercial facility.”

Berg went on to say, “The state’s legislative initiative will have licensing efficiency benefits for commercial-scale rare earth operations. We applaud Wyoming’s forward thinking and goal of economic diversification and appreciate its ongoing support of the rare earth industry and the company.”

Berg has also spoken to reforms passed by Congress earlier this month, which could streamline and provide a more defined timeline for the federal permitting process. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process can routinely take seven to ten years, Berg said in a recent essay, complicated by the ability of oversight agencies to conduct broad and imprecise analysis as part of the process.

The reform imposes timelines for new project reviews, which means an Environmental Assessment is now expected to take one year and an Environmental Impact Statement will take two years. It also, says Berg, provides companies with recourse if the work is not completed in a timely manner, has a provision for companies to prepare and submit their own assessments and statements and limits the concept of “reasonably foreseeable” when applied to the impacts of a project.

RER well knows the potential impacts of a length NEPA process, having been forced to put a hold on its permitting activities in early 2016 for financial reasons.