DOE awards $67M to ElementUSA, Colorado School of Mines for rare earth processing plant

Minerals extraction company ElementUSA, in partnership with Colorado School of Mines, has announced a $67 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance the design, construction, commissioning and operation of a rare earth element (REE) processing facility in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana.  

The award builds on ElementUSA’s ongoing $29.9 million project with the Department of War (DOW) focused on gallium and scandium recovery and commercialization.  

These programs, the company said, materially advance ElementUSA’s plan to onshore critical mineral supply chains by scaling a proven, proprietary process that converts bauxite residue, the byproduct of alumina refining, into pig iron and a diversified suite of critical minerals and REEs. 

“This project represents a significant step toward establishing a new domestic source of critical minerals and rare earth elements essential to advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, energy systems and national security,” CEO Ellis Sullivan said in a news release.  

“Beyond gallium and scandium, this program advances the recovery of a uniquely valuable mixed rare earth oxide basket with strong heavy rare earth and yttrium content,” Sullivan said. 

“By combining Colorado School of Mines’ world-class expertise with ElementUSA’s commercial development platform, we are advancing a practical pathway to recover strategic materials from bauxite residue at commercial scale while strengthening America’s critical mineral supply chains and transforming an underutilized industrial waste stream into a nationally strategic resource.” 

Scale and commercial pathway 

ElementUSA’s integrated hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical flowsheet is engineered to co-produce pig iron and recover critical metals and REEs, including scandium, gallium, germanium, yttrium, neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, gadolinium, titanium, vanadium, niobium, and tantalum, improving unit economics through diversified revenue, the company said.  

It is advancing a phased development pathway to a full-scale commercial facility targeting approximately 1 million tons per annum feed capacity at full scale. Estimated capital expenditure is approximately $1.1B.  

The facility, the company said, has the potential to make the Louisiana residue one of the only depleting bauxite residue waste resources in the world.  

ElementUSA said it will be breaking ground on the first phase of this project in Louisiana later this month, adding that it has secured exclusive access to the bauxite residue resource in St. John the Baptist Parish, which is currently ~34 million tons of proven reserves.  

At scale, this resource has potential to produce 45–385% of U.S. annual demand for gallium, scandium, yttrium, germanium, ytterbium, dysprosium and gadolinium, along with significant concentrations of additional critical minerals, the company said.  

The Critical Resource Accelerator in Cedar Park, Texas, is the company’s integrated lab-to-pilot hub for process validation, product qualification and scale-up.