DEFENSE
The Army Just Invited a Rare Earth Processor Inside the Wire
In 1942, the U.S. Army broke ground on a weapons depot in the Utah desert. Tooele sat 35 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, ringed by mountains and far from anything that mattered. For decades it stored some of the most dangerous things the military owned — mustard gas, nerve agents, millions of rounds of munitions. The Army spent 16 years destroying the chemical stockpile. The last canister was gone by 2012.
Now, for the first time, the Army has invited a private mineral processor to set up shop inside an active military base.
In late June, the Army conditionally selected REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) for exclusive lease talks at the Tooele Army Depot. The deal would let the company privately finance, build, and run heavy rare earth processing inside the base perimeter. No commercial mineral processor has ever done this. The legal tool they are using — called an Enhanced Use Lease — was built for base housing and utilities. Nobody had stretched it to cover critical minerals until now.
That is because this is not really about real estate. It is about the four elements that make high-performance magnets work: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. China refines more than 90% of the world's supply. Since October 2025, Beijing has tightened export controls. In June 2026, it went further — blacklisting both MP Materials and USA Rare Earth, the two companies at the center of America's supply chain effort. The blacklist bars anyone, anywhere, from sending Chinese-origin dual-use materials to those firms.
REalloys is trying a different path. On August 13, the company reported Q2 results: $122.4 million in cash after a $100 million private placement in June. Its SRC facility is fully funded and designed to produce 525 tonnes of NdPr metal per year, plus dysprosium and terbium oxides. A second facility — built to turn those oxides into finished metals — is also funded and set for early 2028.
The timing lines up with a deadline most investors have not circled yet. On January 1, 2027, U.S. defense contractors face a ban on Chinese-origin rare earth materials in military procurement. That is four and a half months from today. Every weapons maker needs a non-Chinese source by then, or a waiver.
REalloys plans to be ready. The company says it expects no taxpayer subsidies for the Tooele project. It is building heavy rare earth processing inside the same depot where the Army stores its own ammunition. From chemical weapons to critical minerals. Tooele is getting a second life. And the American supply chain is getting something it has never had: a domestic heavy rare earth processor behind a military fence.
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ALSO THIS WEEK
CHINA
China's Rare Earth Capital Sets Its Sights on $22 Billion
Baotou held its Fourth Baiyun Forum on August 8, organized by the state laboratory that runs the Bayan Obo mine — the world's largest rare earth deposit. Fourteen experts presented on metallurgy, new materials, and how to speed the path from lab to factory. Baotou's rare earth output grew from RMB 63 billion ($9.5 billion) in 2022 to RMB 120.5 billion ($18 billion) in 2025. The 2026 target is RMB 150 billion — roughly $22 billion. More than 300 rare earth companies now operate in the city. While Washington writes checks, Baotou is pouring concrete.
MARKETS
Rare Earth Stocks Jumped 8% on Friday With No Catalyst in Sight
MP Materials gained 8%. USA Rare Earth rose 9%. NioCorp added 3%. There was no confirmed news — no announcement, no earnings beat, no new policy. Traders appeared to be positioning for more tariff and industrial-policy support. All year, rare earth stocks have traded on what Washington might do next. A $12 billion stockpile plan moved the group in February. A China export ban moved it in June. The sector also dropped on oversupply fears in late July. The pattern holds: policy expectations drive these stocks more than fundamentals do.
PRICES
Benchmark: Without a Price Premium, Western Heavy Rare Earth Mines Won't Work
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence added new cost curves to its Q2 2026 Rare Earths Forecast. The conclusion: light rare earth projects can survive with the Pentagon's $110/kg NdPr price floor. Heavy rare earths are a different story. Ex-China dysprosium and terbium projects need a sustained price premium above Chinese domestic levels to make money. Inside China, dysprosium trades at $204–210/kg. Outside, prices run at steep multiples of the domestic level — depending on purity, origin, and how badly the buyer needs it. If that premium ever compresses, most Western heavy rare earth projects fall apart. As Benchmark's research manager Neha Mukherjee put it: the economics differ by product, and heavy rare earth supply outside China is not guaranteed by current policy alone.
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"Value is not created where politicians make announcements. Value is added where difficult work is performed repeatedly, economically, and reliably.”
Jack Lifton, Co-Chair, Critical Minerals Institute | InvestorIntel
July 31, 2026
Pr
PRASEODYMIUM
The Element
Praseodymium means "green twin" in Greek — named for the green color of its salts when it was discovered in 1885. Its most common oxide is actually black, but the element gives glass and ceramics a vivid green tint. Today praseodymium is half of the NdPr alloy that goes into every permanent magnet worth caring about. EV motors, wind turbines, headphones, guided missiles. It rarely gets its own headline because it is always paired with neodymium, but it makes up roughly 20–25% of the magnet alloy by weight. At $245.40/kg, praseodymium is up 70% this year and up 237% since January 2020. That rise tracks the global race to build magnets outside China — and the growing realization that no substitute exists.
AROUND THE MARKET
Metallium Extends Flash Joule Heating Tests to Germanium, PGMs, and Red Mud
Metallium (ASX: MTM) reported successful FJH tests across germanium-bearing industrial waste, spent catalytic converters, and red mud. The company says it can selectively recover and concentrate valuable materials from complex feedstocks — extending the technology beyond its e-waste focus into wider critical minerals recovery.
CMI Hosts "Playing the American Trump Card" Masterclass
The Critical Minerals Institute held its August Masterclass on Friday, featuring Jack Lifton and Mel Sanderson. The central question: will U.S. federal spending create new processing capacity, or will it just drive up the price of the limited supply that already exists?
China's Rare Earth Price Index Falls to 260.1
The index dropped from above 300 earlier this year to 260.1 on August 12, but remains well above 2024 levels. Heavy rare earths stay scarce outside China, with ex-China dysprosium trading at a steep premium to domestic Chinese prices.
Queensland Commits A$146 Million to Critical Minerals
Australia's Queensland announced a five-year critical minerals plan for 2026–2030, with A$146 million across exploration, processing, and downstream manufacturing. The strategy covers rare earths, graphite, tungsten, and nickel — building on an earlier A$245 million commitment from 2023.
