USA Rare Earth was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive up to $19.3M in funding for a pilot-scale rare earth element separations project. The stock was up 1.6% in pre-market trading Thursday on the news.
The funding comes under DOE’s Critical Materials Innovation, Efficiency and Alternatives program. Final award amounts are still subject to negotiation with the agency.
The total project is valued at approximately $50.5M. That breaks down to up to $19.3M from the DOE and $31.2M in non-DOE funding.
The project focuses on building pre-commercial REE separations capacity inside the United States. It targets processing rare earth elements sourced from domestic resources.
Rare earth elements are used in energy systems, defense equipment, and advanced manufacturing. Building domestic processing capacity has been a policy priority in Washington for several years now.
The final project scope, budget, and timeline will be worked out through negotiations with the DOE. Nothing is locked in yet beyond the selection announcement.
CEO Barbara Humpton called the selection “an important validation of our team’s cutting-edge work to build a resilient rare earth value chain.”
Humpton took the reins at USAR in late 2024. She previously served as CEO of Siemens USA, bringing a background in industrial and defense-related technology.
The company has been pushing to establish itself as a domestic alternative to Chinese-controlled rare earth supply chains. This DOE selection moves that effort forward on the processing side.
The pilot-scale project is focused specifically on the separations stage of rare earth processing. That is the step where individual rare earth elements are isolated from each other after extraction.
Separations technology is considered one of the harder parts of the REE supply chain to replicate outside of China. The U.S. currently has limited domestic separations capacity.
USAR’s Round Top deposit in Texas is central to its broader strategy. The company has previously outlined plans to mine, process, and separate REEs at a domestic facility.
The DOE funding fits into that vertical integration goal. A funded separations pilot would be a key step toward commercial-scale production.
The pre-market move of 1.6% was measured against Wednesday’s close. Full trading reaction will become clearer once the regular session opens Thursday.
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