POSCO Bets on ReElement and America in Strategic Push Against China’s Rare Earth Dominance

Highlights

• POSCO International Corporation and ReElement Technologies announce a $200 million strategic partnership to build a rare earth separation and refining facility in the United States, producing up to 6,000 tons annually of refined materials including NdPr oxide by 2028.
• The deal validates ReElement's water-based ion chromatography technology as a cleaner alternative to China's solvent-heavy separation model, addressing the West's greatest vulnerability in rare earth processing and refining.
• The partnership signals an emerging U.S.-South Korea industrial alliance around critical minerals and EV supply chains, though execution risk remains substantial as building economically viable ex-China separation capacity at scale has proven challenging.

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The rare earth war is quietly moving downstream. POSCO International Corporation (opens in a new tab) announced a strategic partnership with ReElement Technologies Corporation (opens in a new tab) to build a $200 million rare earth separation and refining facility in the United States—an important signal that global industrial powers increasingly understand the real bottleneck in rare earths is not mining. It is processing in the midstream of the supply chain.

The planned facility would eventually produce up to 6,000 tons annually of refined rare earth materials, including NdPr oxide and heavy rare earth oxides tied to permanent magnet production. Pilot production could begin as early as late 2027, with commercial scale targeted for 2028.

For ReElement, the deal represents a major validation moment given the prominence of the Korean corporation.

POSCO facility in South Korea

POSCO is one of South Korea’s largest industrial conglomerates and among the world’s leading steel producers, but the company has evolved far beyond traditional steelmaking. Since restructuring into a holding company in 2022, POSCO has aggressively expanded into strategic sectors tied to EVs, batteries, critical minerals, infrastructure, and green energy. Through subsidiaries such as POSCO International Corporation and POSCO Future M Co., Ltd., the group is building vertically integrated supply chains spanning lithium extraction, battery materials, resource development, global trading, and advanced manufacturing. The company’s growing focus on critical minerals and permanent magnet supply chains reflects a broader industrial strategy aimed at positioning South Korea competitively in the global EV, AI, robotics, and energy-transition economy.

Indiana-based ReElement Technologies has spent years promoting its water-based ion chromatography refining technology as a cleaner alternative to China’s solvent-heavy separation model. And although this methodology has not been validated at commercial scale,  now a major Asian industrial player appears willing to bet serious capital on it. That matters because separation remains one of the West’s greatest vulnerabilities. China still dominates global rare earth refining, metallization, alloying, and magnet manufacturing infrastructure.

The announcement also hints at something bigger: an emerging U.S.–South Korea industrial alliance around critical minerals, magnets, robotics, EVs, and AI infrastructure.  And ReElement Technologies has emerged as a serious recycling contender in America.

As with all of the ex-China players, execution risk remains substantial.

Building economically viable ex-China separation capacity at scale has repeatedly proven harder than Western headlines suggest. The real test will  be whether ReElement and POSCO can deliver commercially competitive separated oxides at industrial scale. The stakes are getting bigger for privately held ReElement with this latest deal.

Many questions remain such as location of the facility, and as more information materializes, Rare Earth Exchanges™ will be there to chronicle the ongoing development of the ex-China rare earth supply chain.