News

USA Rare Earth Applauds President Biden’s Executive Order to Secure America’s Critical Supply Chains for Rare Earth Elements and Electric Vehicle Batteries

SmallCaps Daily February 25, 2021

202 4 minutes read

Biden Administration to
Undertake Swift Reviews of Key U.S. Supply Chain Vulnerabilities, Including
Critical Minerals

USA Rare Earth’s Round Top
Deposit Hosts Materials Essential to Rare Earth Permanent Magnets, EV and
Li-Ion Batteries, and Advanced Semi-Conductor Chips

New York, NY – (NewMediaWire) – February 24, 2021 – USA
Rare Earth LLC, the funding and development partner of the Round Top Heavy Rare
Earth, lithium and Critical Minerals Project in Hudspeth County, West Texas,
together with Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (OTCQB: TMRC), today applauded
President Biden’s Executive Order on Securing America’s Critical Supply Chains.
The Executive Order requires swift new government assessments of key U.S.
supply chains across the healthcare, technology and transportation sectors,
including for semiconductor materials, critical minerals, rare earth elements,
and electric vehicle batteries.

“The assessments over the next
100 days will reiterate the importance of U.S. national assets like our Round
Top heavy rare earth and lithium project in providing the technology metals
needed for the next century of U.S. innovation and infrastructure,” said Pini
Althaus, Chief Executive Officer of USA Rare Earth. “We applaud President
Biden’s urgency to assess and build additional U.S. capacity across the
transportation, energy and defense industrial base. Rare earths and critical
minerals, including lithium, are essential to modern technology and require a
robust, resilient strategy for U.S. advanced manufacturing and national
security. Round Top touches three of the four vital products leading the EO
today, including for semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries.”

During the signing ceremony
today, President Biden discussed the manufacturing base and mentioned, “key
minerals and materials, like rare earths, that are used to make everything from
harder steel to airplanes.” The Executive Order requires an immediate 100-day
review of U.S. supply chains for four key products, including APIs for
pharmaceuticals, rare earth elements, semiconductors and advanced packaging,
and large capacity batteries. Multiple federal agencies will develop
comprehensive supply chain assessments of goods and materials critical to
national and economic security and for which shortages or global competition
affect supply. USA Rare Earth’s Round Top deposit hosts the full range of
rare earths and lithium for large capacity batteries and electric vehicle
batteries, and also U.S. Government-listed Critical Minerals zirconium, hafnium
and gallium, which are required for next-generation semiconductor
manufacturing.

The reports will provide the
White House with policy options for the national defense stockpile and will
build on recent government efforts led by a September 2020 executive order
which addressed threats to the U.S. supply chain for critical minerals and rare
earth elements. Subsequent government assessments within one year of Biden’s
executive order will also examine the resiliency of essential materials to the
defense and transportation industrial base, including gaps in domestic
manufacturing capabilities and supply chains with a single point of failure, as
well as opportunities to collaborate production with allied nations.

“The Biden Administration is
right to examine the criticality of numerous U.S. materials and electronic
goods that are vulnerable to global disruption on a daily basis, including rare
earth elements,” said Pini Althaus. “There is already surging demand for
lithium and EV battery materials, and U.S. manufacturers will need new
sustainable supply to meet near term goals this decade. We welcome President
Biden’s leadership as we work to restore a full mine-to-magnet, mine-to-market
U.S. supply chain.”

Currently, the U.S. lacks a
commercial-scale capability to process rare earth permanent magnets used in the
automotive, aerospace, defense and electronics industries. In 2020, USA Rare
Earth opened the first rare earth and critical minerals processing facility in
the U.S. and also acquired the neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) permanent magnet
manufacturing equipment formerly operated by Hitachi Metals America in North
Carolina. The Company is presently completing plans to re-site and recommission
the equipment; once operational, the facility will produce approximately 17% of
the (2019) U.S. permanent magnet demand. The permanent magnets will also be
used for electric vehicle motors. At present, no other NdFeB permanent magnet
manufacturing plant is operational in the Americas.

About USA Rare Earth, LLC

USA Rare Earth, LLC is earning
and acquiring an 80% operating joint venture interest in, and is the operator
of, the Round Top Heavy Rare Earth and Critical Minerals Project located in
Hudspeth County, West Texas from Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (TMRC: OTCQB).
Round Top hosts a wide range of critical heavy rare earth elements, high-tech
metals, including lithium, zirconium, hafnium and beryllium, and, based on the
Preliminary Economic Assessment (dated August 16, 2019) projects a pre-tax net
present value using a 10% discount rate of $1.56 billion based on a 20-year
mine plan that is only 13% of the identified measured, indicated and inferred
resources. The PEA estimates an internal rate of return of 70% and average
annual net revenues of $395 million a year after average royalties of $26
million a year payable to the State of Texas. Based on the cost estimates set
forth in the PEA, Round Top would be one of the lowest-cost rare earth
producers, and one of the lowest cost lithium producers in the world. The Round
Top Deposit hosts 16 of the 17 rare earth elements, plus other high-value tech
minerals (including lithium) and is well located to serve the US internal
demand. In excess of 60% of materials at Round Top will be used directly in
green or renewable energy technologies. Round Top contains 13 of the 35
minerals deemed “critical” by the Department of the Interior and contains
critical elements required by the United States, both for national defense and
industry. USA Rare Earth has also opened a rare earth and critical minerals
processing facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado and in April 2020 USA Rare Earth
acquired the neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) permanent magnet manufacturing
equipment formerly owned and operated in North Carolina by Hitachi Metals
America, Ltd. For more information about USA Rare Earth, visit www.usare.com