Rare earth products, mined and refined in the United States, have qualified to be manufactured into permanent magnets.
U.S. uranium and rare earth producer Energy Fuels and South Korea’s Posco, which announced a partnership in March, aim to reduce reliance on China for electric motor components. The companies have now confirmed that neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) produced by Energy Fuels meets all quality standards and is already being used at an industrial scale in Posco’s permanent magnet production. Energy Fuels describes this as a “critical breakthrough” in creating a mine-to-magnet supply chain.
The raw materials come from monazite concentrates mined in Florida and Georgia by the chemical company Chemours. Energy Fuels processes the concentrates at its White Mesa Mill in Utah, currently the only facility in North America capable of producing rare earth oxides from monazite. Magnets produced by Posco from this NdPr are intended for electric and hybrid vehicles in North America, the EU, Japan, and Korea. According to Energy Fuels, the initial shipment of NdPr delivered earlier this year could power approximately 1,500 new electric and hybrid vehicles. The two companies are now negotiating a long-term supply agreement.
In addition, Energy Fuels began producing heavy rare earths in July, a sector even more dominated by China than lighter rare earths like neodymium. Since April, most heavy rare earths have been subject to export controls by China, further straining global supply. Other Western producers are also accelerating efforts to establish independent supply chains for these critical materials (we reported).
Photo: iStock/Aranga87
