US-based Phoenix Tailings says Rochester, New York, has the industrial infrastructure and skilled workforce needed for its proposed US$1.2 billion-plus “Freedom” rare earth separation plant, from which it hopes to produce more than 4400 tonnes a year of separated rare earth oxides from 2028 using technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“My grandfather, Nicholas Sfikas, started Rochester 100 Inc just 15 minutes from the site of our new facility,” Phoenix CEO and co-founder Nick Myers said.
“Growing up watching him build his amazing company, and having worked on the factory floor myself, I know firsthand the depth of talent and manufacturing expertise in Rochester.
“Technology can give America control over its critical supply chains but it takes skilled, determined people to turn that promise into production. Rochester has those people. They know how to build, how to innovate and how to run world-class industrial operations.”
The Rochester separation facility is expected to employ 90 people at launch in 2027 and “more than 200 direct New York jobs” thereafter.
Phoenix, which earlier this year secured a $500 million conditional loan commitment from the US Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital for the Freedom project, says it has more than $1 billion of private and public backing.
It says the “integrated separation-and-metallisation platform” proposed for Rochester will process both mined and recycled rare earth feedstocks.
“At full capacity it is expected to be one of the largest rare earth separation operations in the world, processing more than 18,000 tonnes per year of variable rare earth feedstock and producing more than 4400tpa of separated rare earth oxides,” the company said.
