MP Materials
An artist's rendering of the forthcoming MP Materials manufacturing plant in AllianceTexas.
The Fort Worth City Council unanimously approved a tax abatement agreement this week with MP Materials Corp., which will build its initial rare earth metal, alloy, and magnet manufacturing facility at the AllianceTexas development in north Fort Worth.
The company has entered an agreement with General Motors to supply U.S.-sourced and manufactured rare earth materials, alloy and finished magnets for the electric motors in more than a dozen automobile models beginning in 2023.
In Fort Worth, MP Materials will develop a 200,000-square-foot greenfield metal, alloy, and neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnet manufacturing facility, which will also serve as the business and engineering headquarters for its growing magnetics division, MP Magnetics. The facility will create more than 100 skilled jobs.
The project is anticipated to result in at least $100 million in real and business personal property investment ($40 million in construction costs and $60 million in business personal property that will be installed at the facilities.
AllianceTexas is owned and operated by Hillwood.
MP Materials (NYSE: MP) is the largest producer of rare earth materials in the Western Hemisphere. The company owns and operates the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility (Mountain Pass), the only rare earth mining and processing site of scale in North America. MP Materials produced approximately 15% of the rare earth content consumed in the global market in 2020. Separated rare earth elements are critical inputs for the magnets that enable the mobility of electric vehicles, drones, defense systems, wind turbines, robotics, and many other high-growth, advanced technologies.
NdFeB permanent magnets are critical inputs to the electric motors and generators that enable electric vehicles, robots, wind turbines, drones, defense systems and other technologies to transform electricity into motion and motion into electricity.
Although development of permanent magnets originated in the United States, the U.S. has virtually no capacity to produce sintered NdFeB magnets today. Like semiconductors, which became linked to virtually every aspect of life as computers and software proliferated, NdFeB magnets are fundamental building blocks in modern technologies and will increase in importance as the global economy electrifies and decarbonizes.