China’s Ban On Rare Earth Exports Good News For Huge Wyoming Projects

The leaders of Wyoming’s budding rare earth mining startups were feeling vindicated Tuesday after China announced a ban on exporting several critical minerals to the United States.

The Chinese ban announced Tuesday includes gallium, used to make semiconductors, and germanium, used for infrared and fiber optics technology. China also banned antimony, used for military explosives, and super hard materials like tungsten, used for armor-piercing bullets and shells.

China’s move followed the Biden administration further cutting off access to advanced American technology, adding 100 Chinese companies to a restricted trade list in an escalating tech war between the two superpowers.

“This kind of validates the momentum that is already going here in Wyoming,” Wyoming Rare (USA) President Joe Evers said. “And it also shows that domestic projects like those that are being undertaken in the state of Wyoming are so necessary and important for our economic prosperity and our national defense.”

Wyoming has a huge head start on other American states in developing rare earths mines and processing, Evers added, and its position at the front can only be a benefit in what is definitely becoming something of a rare earths arms race.

“Most folks take it for granted,” he said. “When you think about these resources, critical minerals and rare earths, they’re in our pockets, in our computers, and in our homes.

“It’s in our cars — whatever they might be. But I don’t think we appreciate how much lead time is necessary to bring these projects online.”

Already Working

Wyoming also doesn’t have all its rare earth eggs in one basket. It has several projects already in the works.

The Halleck Creek project near Wheatland, for example, that Evers’ company is working to bring online, has the potential to be one of the largest rare earth deposits in the nation, if not the world. The U.S. government has already pledged up to $456 million in financing for the project.

Final assay results from the most recent core samples taken from the area have confirmed some of the highest-grade rare earth oxides to date at the location as it works to flesh out the business case for its mine, according to recent announcements by the company.

Concurrent with that effort, the company has continued to make “good progress” on the permitting side of things, Evers added.

“We’re getting everything teed up for additional exploration next spring and summer,” he said. “And we’re really focusing in on the metallurgical process of how we get metal out of these rocks that we’re working on out there.”

Then there is also Ramaco Resources, which has an unconventional rare earth deposit estimated to be worth at least $37 billion. 

Since then, the company has revised its estimates upward, from 800,000 tons of rare earths to more like 1.5 million tons.

While the Halleck Creek deposit doesn’t have any of the listed banned materials, Ramaco’s deposits include both gallium and germanium, both of which are among the more valuable rare earths.

Wyoming Head Of The Pack

But it’s not just these rich rare earth mining sites that are putting Wyoming ahead of the game. There are also efforts to develop an entirely new, and cheaper, approach to the chemistry of refining rare earth minerals. 

That’s where the recently finished demonstration plant in Upton comes in. It, too, has received federal assistance for its mission to scale up an economically feasible approach to processing rare earths.

That’s been seen as critical to developing a domestic supply, more so even than the mining itself. China has long maintained a stranglehold on rare earth supplies by flooding the market with the minerals, choking out competitors by keeping prices so low, they can’t compete.

Rare Element Resources Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Administrative Officer Kelli Kast told Cowboy State Daily her company views China’s latest announcement as a call to action for domestic sources and technology. And she’s excited to be part of helping to lead that charge here in Wyoming.

“It once again shows China’s intention to manipulate the market by putting export restrictions on key critical rare minerals,” she said in an email. “Because Rare Element Resource’s rare earth Bear Lodge deposit near Sundance and our proprietary processing and separation technology is wholly separate from Chinese sourcing and technology, we believe our demonstration project now underway in Upton is even more important, and then the development of our Bear Lodge Mine.”

Given its proximity to the world-class Bear Lodge deposit, Upton could one day be in line for a full-scale operations plant, if Rare Element Resources' process is proven out.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.