There has been some reporting about the possible exploitation of our mountains of toxic coal ash as a source of rare earth minerals.
Now news of an existing coal mine that may contain a globally significant trove of those minerals – good news in that there is no need to open new mines to meet that demand, which is coming not just from clean tech, but from every tech the economy will be counting on.
A small coal miner headquartered in Kentucky could play an important role in helping the U.S. break its dependence on China for rare earth elements that are crucial for national defense.
Ramaco Resources unexpectedly discovered in 2023 that a Wyoming coal mine it purchased for $2 million is sitting on top of a major trove of rare earth elements. The Brook Mine outside Sheridan is estimated to contain as much as 1.7 million tons of rare earth oxides, according to an analysis this month by the mining consultant Weir International.
The discovery is potentially a major turn of fortunes for Ramaco, a relatively small company with a market cap of $571 million that mines coal in West Virginia and Virginia for steel production. It could also help wean the U.S. off imports from China, a key priority of the Trump administration.
The U.S. was almost entirely dependent on foreign countries for the roughly 10,000 metric tons of rare earths it consumed in 2023 with China representing 70% of the country’s imports, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Beijing imposed controls in April on exports of seven rare earth elements to the U.S retaliation for President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Those rare earths are critical for weapons like the F-35 warplane, which contains more than 900 pounds of them, according to the Defense Department.
The Brook Mine “has the potential to help address what is an acute national strategic supply shortfall of precisely the rare earths and critical minerals which we happen to possess,” CEO Randall Atkins told analysts on the company’s first-quarter earnings call Monday. “From a national security standpoint, we will never need to ship our ores to China or any other country for processing.”
Ramaco Resources Inc. in northeast Wyoming plans to update its rare earths deposit find in the Cowboy State on Wednesday, pushing the estimate on tonnage underground to more than 1.5 million tons, and the value to more than $37 billion because of the inclusion of Chinese minerals banned for shipment to America.
The deposit in the coal-rich Powder River Basin is already considered to be one of the world’s largest deposits of rare earth minerals.
Ramaco estimated in May 2023 that it had 800,000 tons of rare earths. Since then as testing has continued, that figure has been revised upward to 1.2 million tons.
But a new technical report prepared by a consultant for Lexington, Kentucky-based Ramaco reveals 1.5 million tons with more than 10% of the Brook Mine deposit estimated to contain strategic gallium and germanium critical minerals.
In terms of the report’s key findings — to be released Wednesday — both the reported Brook Mine’s rare earth tonnage volume and concentrations estimates have almost doubled since the original May 2023 report.
A key aspect contained in the updated report is the notation that China has banned for export those two high-value critical minerals to the United States, which were not included in the earlier analysis in 2023.
The increased prices in the two critical minerals prompted Ramaco to include them in the new analysis — which is likely to bring the value of the rare earths deposit to well over $37 billion.