Highlights

• Pensana cancelled its £250M UK rare earth refinery at Saltend, relocating to the U.S. where federal price guarantees, energy costs, and policy speed offer superior economics for processing Angolan mine output.
• The U.S. $110/kg NdPr price floor and aggressive industrial policy through IRA and DPA have transformed rare earth investment risk, making America the epicenter of non-Chinese supply chain development.
• The transatlantic shift exposes Europe's strategic weakness: without binding offtake agreements and capital deployment matching U.S. scale, critical minerals projects are migrating to faster-moving markets.

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When Pensana confirmed it was abandoning its long-planned £250 million rare earth refinery at Saltend on the Humber, it wasn’t just another cancelled UK industrial project—it was a signal flare for where the real gravitational pull in critical minerals now lies. The company’s decision to relocate refining operations to the United States marks a turning point in the global race to build an ex-China rare earth supply chain.

For Pensana, which will feed material from its world-class Longonjo mine in Angola, the U.S. offers what the UK and Europe have failed to deliver: meaningful industrial partnership, reliable power pricing, and policy urgency. As Chairman Paul Atherley put it, “When the Americans do it, they go big and hard. We just talk about it.”

Why the Move Makes Sense

The reasoning is grounded in economics and policy reality, not emotion.

Guaranteed pricing and offtake certainty.

The U.S. government’s July 2025 partnership with MP Materials, establishing a $110/kg NdPr price floor, has effectively re-priced global project risk. That single move transformed the investment climate for every new refinery outside China.

Federal capital and regulatory speed.

Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Defense Production Act, and the DFC, Washington is deploying tools that resemble 1950s industrial policy—fast, focused, and mission-driven. Pensana has already received $3.4 million in DFC technical assistance for its Angolan mine and expects further alignment once its planned Nasdaq listing completes.

Energy and scale advantages.

With U.S. industrial power costs nearly half the UK’s and ready access to Gulf Coast or Midwest infrastructure, the economics of separation and metallization simply work better.

The Broader Signal: The U.S. Is Now the Axis of Non-Chinese Supply

For the UK, some media suggested this was “a blow,” but the real headline is that the U.S. has become the epicenter of the Western rare earth world. The transatlantic pivot is accelerating: refining, magnet manufacturing, and recycling are clustering around U.S. industrial hubs with deep capital markets and federal backing.

For Pensana, this isn’t a retreat—it’s alignment with the fastest-moving market outside China. For Britain and Europe, it’s a cautionary tale: strategy papers and speeches can’t compete with price floors, purchase guarantees, and policy muscle.

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