Ucore to start rare earth output at Louisiana plant next May

Canada’s Ucore Rare Metals Inc. aims to start producing rare earth elements at a new Louisiana facility next May, boosting US processing capacity in an industry that’s currently dominated by China.

The move comes as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to increase domestic production of rare earths, which are strategically vital for weapons and other high-tech applications.

The company is transforming an 80,000-square-foot building on a former Air Force base into an $80 million plant for rare earth magnet materials — including some metals that are under China export restrictions.

Ucore has been able to move ahead with processing at a bigger scale after securing a site designated as a foreign trade zone. Such zones allow companies to delay or reduce duty payments, and enable duty-free treatment on re-exported goods.

“You can bring inputs from Brazil, you can process the material and send it back to Japan for magnet making and there’s no tariff consequence coming in, coming out,” chief executive officer Pat Ryan said in an interview.

Ucore began work in June turning the building at England Airpark in Alexandria, Louisiana into a facility to process and refine rare earths — key ingredients in a range of applications for defense, electric vehicle manufacturing and consumer electronics. The company received $18.4 million from the US Defense Department for the first of four phases of construction.

The company aims to produce as much as 3,000 tons of rare earths next year and reach 12,000 tons by 2027 when the entire plant is finished, Ryan said.

Ucore was founded in 2006 and its stock trades in both Canada and the US. Shares have more than doubled this year, giving the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based firm a market value of around $100 million. Ucore jumped as much as 14% in Toronto Wednesday to its highest price in two months.

Ucore has emerged as one of the few companies in North America pursuing rare earth processing. MP Materials Corp. has a commercial-scale operation in California, Saskatchewan Research Council is ramping up production at a plant in Western Canada and Energy Fuels Inc. has processing capacity at a facility in Utah.

Ucore built a demonstration plant in Kingston, Ontario three years ago that’s the size of two tennis courts. The fully computerized facility produces light and heavy rare earth oxides with raw material from Australia and Brazil, and has a current annual output of 110 tons.

Ryan said he is already thinking about building a second plant, probably in Ontario. He foresees producing heavy rare earth magnet materials in Louisiana — such as terbium, neodymium, samarium and praseodymium — and using Kingston to produce cerium and gadolinium.

The company is in talks with a range of potential buyers for its end product, including defense contractors, multinationals involved in the Japanese market, electric vehicle contractors and a wastewater treatment firm.

Ucore also owns a rare earth deposit in Alaska, but building a mine isn’t a priority given the need for processing capability in North America. Ryan said his team had a “eureka moment” in 2018 that prompted them to shift focus to refining to counter China’s dominance across the supply chain.

“If you control the refining, you’ll control the resource,” he said.

(By Elise Harris)