Ramaco Resources announced that the Brook mine has been granted a second five-year land use permit from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.
With the permit, the project is now authorized to continue coal mining and reclamation activities across approximately 4,549 permitted acres north of Sheridan, Wyoming, the miner said.
The land permit for Brook mine contains what is reportedly the country’s biggest unconventional deposit of rare earth elements and critical minerals derived from coal and carbonaceous ore.
Rare earths are essential elements to realising an electrified economy and crucial for manufacturing heavy magnets that propel EVs. There is just one operating mine for magnetic rare earths in the US — the Mountain Pass in California.
Meanwhile, China has taken to dominating 91% of refining activity, 87% of oxide separation, and 94% of magnet production.
On July 11, coal miners, industry stakeholders and government officials marked the opening of the Brook mine carbon ore project, the first new US rare earth mine in over 70 years, and the first new Wyoming coal mine in more than 50 years.
The ability to domestically mine and refine rare earths and critical minerals contained in the carbonaceous ore from the land permit for Brook mine represents a “strategic milestone in the nation’s efforts to reduce foreign reliance on critical minerals essential to defense, technology and clean energy,” the company said.
Earlier this month, Ramaco released a preliminary economic assessment that projected, based upon the current mine plan of producing 2 million tons of coal per annum, an adjusted EBITDA of $134 million by 2028 from the rare earth and critical mineral operation.
Earlier this year, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon supported a $6.1 million energy grant to help fund the development of a pilot-scale processing plant at the Brook mine. Construction will start later this year.