Plant in progress — RER funding supports next phase of rare earth demonstration plant
Photo courtesy of Rare Element Resources Remaining work on the interior of Rare Element Resources' rare earth recovery and separation demonstration plant in Upton, seen here on July 3, 2024 includes placing equipment skids in preparation for the plant to begin operating on Sept. 1.
Rare Element Resources has launched a rights offering aimed at sustaining and expanding work at its rare earth demonstration plant in Upton, where company officials say operations are transitioning from startup activities into full production testing.
The offering, announced Feb. 6, could raise as much as $30.9 million and is expected to run through March 4, according to a company press release. While the financing details are directed at shareholders, the local impact is continued operation of the Upton plant and support for more than 20 jobs created during the project’s startup phase.
According to RER, proceeds from the offering would help fund labor, utilities, consumables, maintenance, sampling and testing, and system modifications at the demonstration plant, which completed construction and initial commissioning in late 2025.
Kelli Kast, the company’s vice president and chief administrative officer, said the plant is now being prepared for its first sustained production runs.
“In the first quarter of 2026, following commissioning and startup activities late last year, the Upton rare earth demonstration is being readied for initial operations,” she said. “Current and near-term work includes completing the final steps in systems shakedown, leading to the initial introduction of production material into the front end of the process.”
Once early systems are operating smoothly, the company plans to advance methodically through the plant, from front-end processing to the production of separated neodymium and praseodymium, known as Nd/Pr, oxides. Nd/Pr are key materials used in permanent magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines and other technologies.
Kast said that once the full plant is operating satisfactorily, the focus will shift to process optimization aimed at achieving reliable, continuous and economical separation of Nd/Pr oxide.
Moving beyond startup
The Upton facility is designed to generate operational data that can be used to evaluate the feasibility of a future commercial-scale processing plant tied to RER’s Bear Lodge rare earth resource in northeast Wyoming.
“The demonstration plant is designed to provide essential scale-up data from our proprietary technology, which was previously validated at pilot scale,” Kast said. “While construction and initial commissioning are complete, full operational runs are needed to confirm long-term process performance and economic parameters for commercial plant design.”
That data, she said, would support future engineering and financial modeling, as well as discussions related to potential partnerships and offtake agreements.
In addition to producing Nd/Pr, RER plans to use the demonstration plant to show that its technology can be applied more broadly, according to the release.
Beyond its current focus, the company aims to demonstrate separation of heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium — materials used in high-performance magnets for defense, automotive and advanced energy applications — as well as the potential processing of third-party feed sources.
Kast said heavy rare earth materials will be stockpiled during initial operations, with later testing requiring plant modifications and targeted production campaigns.
A successful demonstration would involve plant modifications and targeted campaigns using heavy rare earth-enriched feeds or third-party concentrates, Kast said.
She said success would be measured by recovery rates, purity levels and the ability
to operate the plant in a
stable and continuous manner consistent with commercial standards.
What’s different now
Construction and initial startup of the Upton demonstration plant are complete, Kast said. The plant is now meant to show whether the technology can work reliably and at a reasonable cost when run at a larger scale over time — something short tests cannot fully demonstrate.
If the rights offering closes as planned, the community can expect steady progress at the demonstration plant through 2026 and into early 2027, Kast said.
“Realistic milestones include sustained full operations and production of separated Nd/Pr oxide,” Kast told the NLJ. “RER will provide periodic updates as it operates the plant and generates the comprehensive dataset necessary to support economic modeling and a decision to move forward with commercial plant design and construction.”
What is the demonstration plant?
The rare earth demonstration plant in Upton is a pilot-scale processing facility designed to test Rare Element Resources’ proprietary technology under real operating conditions. While construction and commissioning are complete, the plant’s purpose is to generate operational data on performance, efficiency and costs. That information is intended to support decisions about whether and how to move toward a larger commercial processing facility tied to the Bear Lodge rare earth resource.