Rare earths, Energy Fuels (US) buys Australian Strategic Materials and challenges China

A deal of modest value - just $300 million - but with a decidedly ambitious goal: to create "the largest integrated producer of rare earth-based materials outside of China". The goal is defined by Mark Chalmers, CEO of Energy Fuels, a US company founded as a producer of uranium, which on Wednesday 21 announced the acquisition of Australian Strategic Materials (Asm) through a share swap, valuing it at USD 300 million: almost double what it was capitalised on the eve of the event on the Sydney Stock Exchange (the stock immediately adjusted, closing up 119% on the news).

What is important in any case is not so much the price of the acquisition, but rather the investment - the amount of which is still unspecified - for the development of activities after the merger, and the strategy that inspired it, which is framed in the framework of the agreements between the United States and Australia signed last October, which commit the two partners to spend at least one billion dollars each to create critical materials supply chains independent of Beijing.

Asm owns a rare earth refining plant in South Korea and has plans to build another in the US, which will then be integrated with the operations of Energy Fuel, which has already started producing oxides at White Mesa Mill in Utah.

The two companies will also continue to develop mineral deposits: in Australia, Asm is working on the Dubbo project in New South Wales and the Donald (yes, that's right, Donald) project in Victoria, as well as in Madagascar and Brazil.

The goal is to extract enough material to be able to expand the White Mesa Mill plant, increasing the production capacity of neodymium-praseodymium oxide (with a target of 6 thousand tonnes per year), dysprosium (240 thousand tonnes) and terbium (66 thousand).