Phoenix Tailings to Build Rare Earths Processing Facility in New York
Massachusetts company Phoenix Tailings will build a new $375 million rare earths processing facility in western New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last week (WXXI).
What’s going on: “Phoenix Tailings’ operation—which the company has dubbed Freedom Separation—would cull the material from mine waste and other industrial sources in an industrial warehouse complex” in Greece, about five miles northwest of Rochester.
- New York will contribute up to $3 million in tax credits to the project, which will create about 90 jobs and could someday support 200 jobs in the state.
- Construction is slated to begin in 2027, and the new facility is expected to start production in 2028.
- Phoenix Tailings plans to pull the waste from mines in the U.S., South America, Southeast Asia and Australia.
Another project: Earlier this year, the Pentagon conditionally committed $500 million in long-term debt financing to Phoenix Tailings to build a rare earths midstream processing plant (Reuters, subscription).
Why it matters: Gov. Hochul said the new facility will boost “our national security by building a clean supply chain for rare earth elements in New York, reducing reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals” (Reuters, subscription).
- China currently controls the majority of the global supply of rare earths, which are critical to the manufacturing of many defense and technological products.
The impact: The 500,000-square-foot building could process up to 20,000 tons of mine and other waste annually.
- “That much material would be enough to produce several thousand tons of rare earth metals at [Phoenix Tailings’] other, downstream metallization facilities,” according to WXXI.
