MP Materials has received a $58.5 million federal tax credit to support the construction of its rare earth magnet manufacturing plant in Fort Worth, Texas. The Section 48C Advanced Energy Project tax credit allocation was issued by the IRS and Treasury following a competitive, oversubscribed process administered by the Department of Energy that evaluated the technical and commercial viability and environmental and community impact of approximately 250 projects. A similar award for a $111 million tax credit went to an American subsidiary of Vacuumschmelze recently for its new magnet plant in South Carolina, as reported earlier in Magnetics Magazine.
MP Materials began constructing the facility in April 2022. It expects to begin commercial production of precursor materials there this summer and finished magnets by late 2025. MP will supply these products to General Motors, its foundational customer, to support its North American EV production. It is currently producing magnet precursor materials in a North American pilot facility.
MP will source the factory’s raw material inputs from Mountain Pass, California, where MP owns and operates America’s only scaled and operational rare earth mine and separations facility. At the factory, NdPr oxide produced at Mountain Pass will be reduced to NdPr metal and converted to NdFeB alloy and finished magnets, delivering an end-to-end supply chain with integrated recycling and world-class sustainability. With these aspects, the company says that its new Texas plant will become North America’s first fully integrated rare-earth manufacturing facility.
According to a Section 232 investigation completed by the Department of Commerce in 2022, sintered NdFeB magnets are “required for critical infrastructure” and “irreplaceable in key defense applications,” yet the U.S. is “essentially one hundred percent dependent on imports,” posing a serious national security risk. More than 90% of the world’s NdFeB magnets are produced in China.
Neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets are the world’s most powerful and efficient permanent magnets. They are an indispensable component found in the electric motors and generators that power hybrid and electric vehicles, robots, wind turbines, drones, electronics, and critical defense systems. Global demand is expected to triple by 2035. For more info, see www.mpmaterials.com.
