MP Materials
An artist's rendering of the forthcoming MP Materials manufacturing plant in AllianceTexas.
MP Materials Corp., the largest producer of rare earth materials in the Western Hemisphere, on Tuesday announced that it had been awarded a $35 million contract through the U.S. Department of Defense Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Program to support the construction of a commercial scale processing facility for heavy rare earth elements at Mountain Pass.
Heavy rare earth elements have higher atomic weights and are generally less abundant than light rare earth elements. They are essential inputs to many critical defense and commercial technologies, particularly permanent magnets instrumental to the performance of electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, and missile systems.
In addition to its mining and processing operation at Mountain Pass, MP Materials is developing a rare earth metal, alloy and magnet manufacturing facility in Fort Worth in the AllianceTexas development.
Materials sourced from Mountain Pass will be transformed into manufactured products at this new facility, restoring a wholly domestic and vertically integrated U.S. magnetics supply chain. In December 2021, the company 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.
“The ability to mine, process, and refine rare earths at Mountain Pass is foundational to a national effort to secure the U.S. rare earth supply chain,” says MP Materials Chairman and CEO James Litinsky in a statement.
Says Deborah Rosenblum, who is performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy: “The U.S. needs to continue to push the scientific envelope to develop secure, reliable, and affordable domestic source critical minerals used in defense and commercial manufacturing in order to reduce its dependence on foreign sources in a time of global economic competition,”
In a separate contract awarded in December 2020, the Department of Defense committed $9.6 million to MP Materials’ Stage II optimization, a project underway to restore light rare earth elements processing capabilities to Mountain Pass.
In January the Fort Worth City Council unanimously approved a tax abatement agreement with the company as part of its decision to build a plant here.
In Fort Worth, MP Materials will develop a 200,000-square-foot greenfield metal, alloy and neodymium-iron-boron 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 company and city say.
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).