The Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) recently provided Energy Fuels, a Denver-based critical mineral company, with a $725 million conditional loan commitment to scale the domestic processing of rare earth elements.
The loan, along with private investment, will support a new, state-of-the-art, U.S.-based rare earth separation and metallization facility. The conditional loan commitment specifies customary additional steps that the company must take to close on the loan including fulfilling financial, legal, technical and other due diligence requirements.
“OSC is deeply focused on supporting domestic processing for critical minerals and rare earths,” David Lorch, Office of Strategic Capital director, said. “Energy Fuels’ expansion into rare earth midstream processing represents a key solution to a national bottleneck that needs to be rapidly addressed. OSC’s support to Energy Fuels represents an important step in strengthening the full mine-to-magnet supply chain, specifically at the midstream stage, in the United States.”
Energy Fuels operates a uranium processing facility and rare earth oxide separation facility in White Mesa Mill, Utah. Increased production will support permanent magnet facilities throughout the broader U.S. industrial base and will improve the specialty defense and industrial products supply chains.
OSC has committed more than $5 billion in debt financing this fiscal year.