Highlights
- Mark Smith warns that America remains heavily reliant on Chinese rare earth minerals with limited domestic processing capabilities.
- NioCorp’s Elk Creek project in Nebraska targets high-value strategic minerals like niobium, titanium, and rare earth elements.
- The $1.2 billion project faces funding challenges.
- NioCorp seeks financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
- Potential partnerships with automakers like Stellantis are being considered.
In a frank interview on Fox Business (opens in a new tab), Mark Smith, Chairman and CEO of a U.S.-based rare earth company NioCorp Development Ltd (opens in a new tab) (NioCorp) with a flagship project in Nebraska, delivered a clear warning: America remains heavily reliant on Chinese rare earths and lacks critical midstream processing capabilities.
While the U.S. has made strides toward developing its domestic supply chain—particularly under the Trump administration’s aggressive executive actions—Smith emphasized that full self-sufficiency is still years away. Rare Earth Exchanges concurs with such an assessment, easily estimating five years from sustained resilience assuming full throttle efforts toward that aim commenced today.
Smith’s Nebraska project claims a fast-track trajectory, with permits in hand and construction-ready. The site would produce high-value strategic minerals including niobium, titanium, and heavy rare earth elements like terbium—vital for high-temperature magnets used in missiles, fighter jets, and submarines.
These “cannonball materials,” to borrow Smith’s and Kevin Hassett’s analogy, are treated as Section 232 national security assets, deserving of tariff protections and industrial prioritization.
Critical Analysis: What’s Omitted and What’s at Stake
Smith lauds President Trump’s recent March 21 Executive Order and a new Section 232 investigation into midstream rare earth processing. He rightly identifies America’s weakest link: the total absence ofseparation and refining infrastructure, leaving U.S. raw materialsdependent on foreign processors—chiefly in China.
What does Smith not directly take on?
First there are the capital and technical barriers. While Smith emphasizes speed to market, he underplays the billions in investment and years of technical R&D required to build separation and metallization facilities for heavy rare earths.
Next comes the foreign contracts. Smith did not clarify whether his project has offtake agreements with China, as many U.S. or allied mines do—including MP Materials. Third Rare Earth Exchanges raises the topic of workforce and ESG risks. Although in the USA this is substantially less of an issue.
The Rare Earth Exchanges Projects directory will include mine operation ranking worldwide, including the assessment of child labor exploitation and ESG.
Smith also fails to address allied supply chain integration (e.g., Australia, Canada, EU), a glaring omission when trade war pressures require multilateral solutions. Rare Earth Exchanges has suggested at a minimum a Five Eyes rare earth and critical mineral alliance.
As China ramps up its retaliatory bans on rare earth exports, it is yet another description of how far the U.S. has come—and how dangerously far it still has to go. Rare Earth Exchanges will continue tracking the evolving supply chain landscape and national industrial responses.
NioCorp’s Nebraska Rare Earth Project Faces Hurdles
NioCorp’s Elk Creek project in Nebraska has long been promoted as a major domestic source of critical minerals, but years into development, the project continues to face serious challenges. Despite having secured permits and completing feasibility studies, the company still hasn’t raised the full funding needed to begin construction.
The estimated cost is around $1.2 billion, and while the U.S. Export-Import Bank has shown interest in supporting the project with up to $800 million in financing, that support isn’t guaranteed, and a significant funding gap remains.
In past annual reports, the company has acknowledged disappointments (opens in a new tab), including the underwhelming financial outcome of its SPAC transaction despite the strategic benefits of its Nasdaq uplisting and expanded institutional investor base.
In parallel, by end of 2023 NioCorp works toward a rare earth offtake and possible strategic investment agreement with Stellantis to support the automaker’s electrification goals. The company is also pursuing additional financing from commercial banks and the German United Loan Program.
Complementing the Elk Creek Project, NioCorp began a vertical integration initiative in 2023 to commercialize aluminum-scandium master alloy using a proprietary process developed with Nanoscale Powders. The company has successfully produced initial ingots and sees this as a higher-margin application of its scandium production potential.
Some potential litigation (opens in a new tab) have surfaced but this occurs happened from time to time.
By February, NioCorp announced it had fully satisfied all remaining obligations on its $8 million unsecured notes issued in April 2024 to Yorkville Advisors and The Lind Partners. With the debt now extinguished, NioCorp is focused on securing project financing to advance construction of its Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in Nebraska.
NioCorp reported a preliminary loss of $5.4 million ($0.11/share) for Q1 2025 and $8.0 million ($0.17/share) for the nine-month period ending March 31, showing an improvement over the prior year’s nine-month loss of $11.0 million. The results are unaudited and subject to change, with final financials expected by May 15, 2025. The company cautioned investors about relying on the preliminary figures, which include forward-looking statements.
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