USA Rare Earth has commissioned its hydrometallurgical demonstration facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, targeting the first production of separated heavy rare earth oxides in the third quarter of 2026. This milestone is expected to position the company among the few Western entities capable of producing commercial-quality separated heavy rare earth oxides, including dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium. USA Rare Earth is building a fully integrated, global rare earth and critical mineral value chain, with embedded optionality for both supply and offtake at each link in the chain.

The facility has commenced an initial campaign to de-risk three processing flowsheets in parallel: ore from the Round Top deposit, third-party mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) feedstock, and rare earth magnet swarf recycling. Insights from these campaigns will underpin the Round Top Definitive Feasibility Study, which is on track for completion in Q4 2026 and publication in Q1 2027. These insights are also expected to guide commercial engineering of the planned on-site Round Top processing facility and the company's anticipated third-party MREC processing and magnet swarf recycling facility.

Program Scope and Objectives

The demonstration program is structured to systematically de-risk USA Rare Earth's proprietary processing flowsheets across three strategic areas:

• Round Top ore processing: Validating and optimizing the flowsheet for ore from Round Top to produce separated oxides of dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, hafnium, zirconium, and other strategic elements.
• Third-party feedstock processing: Producing separated neodymium-praseodymium, dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium oxides from externally sourced feedstocks, including material from Serra Verde's Pela Ema mine.
• Magnet swarf recycling: Recovering neodymium-praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium from neodymium-iron-boron magnet swarf to expand feedstock sources.

Plant Operations and Integration

The Wheat Ridge plant is fully automated and instrumented for real-time process monitoring, featuring a multi-stage solvent extraction circuit and an on-site analytical laboratory. A team of 28 engineers, scientists, and technicians operates the facility in rotating shifts. Process data will serve as the foundational dataset for a digital twin development program with the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE NETL).

Oxide production is expected to be supplied from sources including Serra Verde, the only scaled producer of all four magnetic rare earths outside of Asia, and the Round Top deposit, with production targeted for late 2028. The resulting oxides are expected to feed Less Common Metals (LCM), the company's subsidiary and a commercial-scale metal, alloy, and strip cast producer, which in turn will supply USA Rare Earth's permanent magnet business.