This Week in Thematics

Research evidence excerpt

This Week in Thematics

Barclays | Thematic Investing

capital on a narrower set of players that demonstrate technical progress and scalability (cost

reduction, sensory parity, scalable manufacturing). Encouragingly, the report highlights that

underlying technical indicators continue to improve. For example media costs have declined by

>99% and production capacity is beginning to scale (e.g., 20,000L facilities) which continues to

support a (slow) path to industrialisation despite capital being significantly constrained.

REE Project Tracker: The long road to meaningful capacity. US backs domestic rare earth

buildout with $725m push. The U.S. government has provided Energy Fuels (Not Covered) with

a conditional $725m, 20‑year loan commitment to expand domestic rare earth processing

capacity, marking one of the largest public financings in the sector. The funding (via the Office of

Strategic Capital) will support upgrades to the company’s White Mesa Mill in Utah and help

build a new U.S.-based rare earth metals and alloy facility, moving the company further into

midstream processing. Strategically, the move is aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on foreign

(particularly Chinese) rare earth supply chains. Energy Fuels, traditionally a uranium producer,

is positioning itself as a vertically integrated critical minerals player, with ambitions to expand

into separation, metallization, and potentially downstream magnet inputs. The financing also

complements its broader strategy, including a proposed acquisition of Australian Strategic

Materials, to deepen capabilities in rare earth metals and alloys. In our view, this underscores a

clear policy-led acceleration of “mine-to-magnet” supply chain localisation in the U.S., with

midstream processing identified as the key bottleneck.