MP Materials received a US$58.5M award to advance construction of the planned rare earth permanent magnet facility in Fort Worth, Texas

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and US Treasury awarded US$58.5M to MP Materials to advance construction of the Fort Worth, Texas, NdFeB magnet facility. The award comes as a Section 48C Advanced Energy Project tax credit, administered by the US Department of Energy. MP Materials’ NdFeB magnet facility at Fort Worth has been in the construction stage since April 2022, with the commissioning of commercial-scale magnet production scheduled for late 2025. The facility is planned to process RE metal products extracted from the Mountain Pass mine in California and later processed into separated rare earth compounds and metal products by MP materials. An existing offtake agreement is in place with General Motors for MP Materials to supply NdFeB magnets to support General Motors EV motor production capabilities in North America.     

There is no commercial scale NdFeB magnet production in the USA as of April 2024, though MP Materials is one of several companies looking to develop capacity in the period to 2030. More than 10.0ktpy NdFeB alloy capacity is planned across six different facilities in the USA by 2030, all looking to manufacture high-performance NdFeB magnet alloys for use in EV motors and high-end applications. While MP Materials is upstream integrated via the Mountain Pass mine and associated refining facilities, questions remain over the sourcing of rare earth metal products to support capacity at other operations, with limited options to source Nd-Pr or Nd metal products and even fewer to source Dy, Tb or Ho metal outside of China.