July 1, 1923. Hanau, Germany.

A small firm spun out of a lab that had spent a decade figuring out how to melt metals in a vacuum. The process produced alloys so pure they made magnets stronger than anything before. They called the company Vacuumschmelze. Vacuum smelting.

For a hundred years, VAC made magnets — through two world wars, the Cold War, and the rise of electric cars and wind farms. Their products went into jet engines, MRI scanners, guided missiles, and EV motors.

By 2026, VAC held more than 400 patents and served over a thousand customers on three continents. Its factory in Sumter, South Carolina could stamp out 2,000 tonnes of magnets a year. Over the last decade, VAC made and shipped more than a billion rare earth magnets.

But VAC had the same problem every Western magnet maker has. The rare earths inside those magnets — neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium — came from China. More than 90% of them. VAC shaped the magnet. Beijing controlled whether the metal showed up.

This week, an American company decided to change that. Energy Fuels — which refines rare earth ore at its White Mesa Mill in Utah — said Tuesday it is buying VAC for $1.9 billion. The price tag includes $718 million in cash and about 66 million new shares. It's one of the largest rare earth deals of the year. And it creates something no Western company has ever built: one business that runs every step from ore in the ground to a finished magnet in your hand.

Here's how the chain works. Energy Fuels mines monazite sand at the Donald Project in Australia. That sand ships to White Mesa, where it gets split into rare earth oxides. Those oxides go to a metals plant in South Korea — through a pending deal with ASM — to be turned into alloys. The alloys go to VAC's Sumter plant, where they're pressed and cut into finished NdFeB magnets.

Three countries. One company. Mine to magnet.

China has had this kind of end-to-end control for thirty years. No Western company has matched it. The last one that tried — Molycorp — went bankrupt in 2015 because it built a mine with no guaranteed buyers.

Energy Fuels thinks it can avoid that fate. VAC already has a thousand long-term customers locked in, including defense firms and car makers. And the company just landed a $725 million loan from the U.S. Office of Strategic Capital to fund the build-out.

The real test is time. China refines 92% of the world's NdPr oxide and splits 98% of heavy rare earths. They've been at it for decades, pricing out everyone along the way. VAC's Sumter plant can scale to 12,000 tonnes a year — enough to matter. Energy Fuels just bet $1.9 billion that the world can't afford to wait.

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USA Rare Earth filed papers this week in a Texas court, denying every claim in MP Materials' trade secrets lawsuit. MP says its rival poached workers and stole the know-how for making magnets that keep their strength under heat. USA Rare Earth called the suit "without merit" and said MP filed it to slow them down. Together, the two firms hold more than $2 billion in federal backing. The fight shows how high the stakes are in a market that barely existed three years ago.

Reps. Moolenaar and Khanna put forward the Magnets Value Chain Support Act on June 9. The bill — backed by both parties — creates tax credits for every step, from oxide refining to magnet making to the motors and defense systems that use them. China makes more than 90% of the world's NdFeB magnets, and this bill targets magnets, not mines, as the real weak point. It's the broadest rare earth bill Congress has put forward. Defense, auto, and factory groups backed it within days.

China's Rare Earth Price Index hit 261.9 on June 23, with heavy rare earths leading. Terbium jumped 22.8% in June alone, climbing back to $970/kg inside China, while dysprosium fell 5.5% to $209/kg. The real story is the export gap — terbium runs $1,406/kg outside China, a $436 spread over the home price. That gap tells you how tight supply is for anyone who doesn't buy from Beijing. China's second-half mining quota is due in weeks, and a tight number would push prices even higher.

Rep. John Moolenaar, Chairman, House Select Committee on China
June 9, 2026

CERIUM

Cerium goes into car exhaust cleaners, phone screen polish, and lighter flints — but nobody puts money into it. Cerium oxide trades at roughly $2 per kilogram while neodymium sells for 30 times more. Every mine that digs for neodymium pulls up several times as much cerium as a byproduct. If you can't sell it, costs pile up and the project fails. This is called the balance problem — the hidden reason most mines outside China never turn a profit.

Ucore Rare Metals made NdPr oxide at its pilot plant in Kingston, Ontario and shipped test samples to major magnet makers on June 22. If the product passes, it opens the door for supply deals before Ucore's larger Louisiana plant comes online. The company uses a process called RapidSX that aims to be faster and cheaper than the methods Chinese refiners use. NdPr oxide is the key input for making rare earth magnets.

— Rare Earth Exchanges

The DOE funded two projects to pull rare earths from waste. Colorado School of Mines will build a plant in Louisiana to pull rare earths from "red mud," a leftover from metal refining. Phoenix Tailings will process old mine waste at a separate site. The goal: prove that refining can work without digging a new mine from scratch.

— Department of Energy

Virtus Minerals is building two cobalt and copper mines in the DRC through its stake in Chemaf, backed by $475 million from Orion Resource Partners and the U.S. DFC. At full scale, the mines target 75,000 tonnes of copper and 25,000 tonnes of cobalt hydroxide per year. The company says it's the first U.S.-owned miner in the DRC in over a decade.

— Fox News

In his latest column, Jack Lifton looked at Iluka Resources as a case study in how rare earth projects stall between having ore and making finished oxides. The chemistry, the testing, and the plant ramp-up — not the size of the deposit — are what decide which projects turn into real firms. Iluka has funding and feedstock but still hasn't reached full output.

— InvestorIntel