USA Rare Earth has commissioned its hydrometallurgical demonstration facility in Wheat Ridge, Colo., which is expected to position the materials company among the few outside China capable of producing separated heavy rare earth oxides at commercial quality.
“The hydromet facility is the latest example of the proprietary technology and capabilities USA Rare Earth is scaling across the entire value chain,” said Barbara Humpton, chief executive officer of USA Rare Earth.
“From access to the limited supply of heavy rare earth feedstock, to processing and separation we are advancing at Wheat Ridge and through our planned investment in Carester, to the metals and alloys produced at LCM, to the permanent magnets we manufacture in the United States, we are rapidly building the only fully integrated rare earth platform of its kind outside China – moving deliberately and at speed to be the partner of choice in the materials the most critical industries depend on.”
USA Rare Earth is building a fully integrated, global rare earth and critical mineral value chain, with embedded optionality for both supply and offtake at each link in the chain. Oxide production is expected to be supplied from a growing number of sources, including Serra Verde (pending closing of acquisition), the only scaled producer of all four magnetic rare earths outside of Asia; Round Top, one of North America’s richest known sources of heavy rare earths with production targeted for late 2028; and other potential third-party sources.
The resulting oxides are expected to feed Less Common Metals (LCM), the company’s subsidiary, one of the few commercial-scale metal, alloy and strip cast producers outside of China, which in turn is expected to supply USA Rare Earth’s permanent magnet business.
“Very few companies outside China have proven they can produce separated oxides of neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), dysprosium (Dy), terbium (Tb) and yttrium (Y) at commercial quality, and the best practices we have developed in-house are expected to put us in that small group,” said Dr. Alex Moyes, senior vice president of Mining and Processing at USA Rare Earth.
“The work at Wheat Ridge can help convert proven chemistry into bankable feasibility studies and move us closer to producing the rare earth materials America’s most critical industries depend on – from mine to magnet.”
The Wheat Ridge plant is fully automated and instrumented for real-time process monitoring across all unit operations, positioning it among the most advanced facilities of its kind in North America, according to USA Rare Earth. A multi-stage solvent extraction circuit, live SCADA monitoring, and an on-site analytical laboratory enable rapid feedback loops and data-driven adjustments.
Process data will also serve as the foundational dataset for a digital twin development program with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, enabling virtual simulation of the full processing flowsheet and accelerating the path to commercial deployment.
Source: USA Rare Earth