Not coal, not uranium: rare earths
Wyoming is known for coal and uranium, but the asset at the center of the SpaceX Supercycle pitch is neither. It is a rare-earth deposit called Bear Lodge, and it sits in the northeast corner of the state. If you want to understand whether the Critical Assets promotion holds water, Bear Lodge is the place to start, because it is the physical thing the whole magnet-metal thesis leans on.
Bear Lodge is rich in neodymium and praseodymium, the two elements that go into the strongest permanent magnets on the market. The deposit also carries smaller amounts of samarium, terbium, cerium, lanthanum, yttrium, gadolinium, europium, and dysprosium. The headline minerals are the magnet pair, which is why the promotion connects the deposit directly to the robot-magnet demand story we cover in our look at the Optimus robot.
Grade, and the fine print
The number that gets quoted in the pitch, 7.92 million tons of tech metals, deserves a close read. That figure is not finished metal. It is ore at a 3.97% total rare earth oxide grade, often written as TREO. A 3.97% grade means roughly 96% of what gets pulled out of the ground is rock that is not rare earths at all. The metals have to be separated out, which is a separate, expensive, and technically demanding step.
This is the same fine print discipline we apply to any commodity pitch. The deposit is real and the grade is respectable for a Western rare-earths project, but calling the ore number “tech metals” makes the asset sound like a warehouse full of finished product when it is really a pile of rock that still needs a full processing chain. Our piece on the commodity supercycle argument explains why that distinction matters for how the story is framed.
Who owns it
The deposit belongs to Rare Element Resources, which trades over the counter under the symbol REEMF. The ownership structure is the single most important thing to know about the stock. About 70% of the company is controlled by General Atomics through a subsidiary called Synchron. General Atomics is a large defense contractor, and a strategic owner of that size is a meaningful backstop for a junior that is still years away from revenue.
That ownership also explains the promotion’s countdown clock. The deadline pointed at August 26, 2026, which is the date of Rare Element Resources’ annual meeting. With General Atomics holding roughly 70% of the vote, that meeting is a rubber-stamp affair rather than a genuine catalyst. The clock is a marketing device, not a real cutoff on a deal.
The road to production
Bear Lodge is not a near-term story. The company has a demonstration plant expected to start up in late summer 2026, with a target of producing up to 10 tons of separated neodymium-praseodymium oxide over roughly 10 months. That is a pilot facility designed to prove the separation technology works, and it is a real milestone, but it is a long way from a working mine.
The project received a FAST-41 “Covered Project” designation in March 2026, which puts it on a federal permitting fast track that coordinates reviews across agencies. Even with that, full federal and state permits are not expected until early 2028, and a realistic start to actual mining lands in the late 2029 to 2030 window. That is the honest timeline, and it stretches well past the two-year return window the promotion floats.
The stock’s recent price action tells the other half of the story. It closed around $1.31 on August 18, 2026, after the promotion had teased it below $1. The intraday high touched $2.00, and the shares sat near $0.80 just a week before the promotion began. The pitch’s own attention moved the stock enough to erase the entry price it was advertising. For the mechanics of actually owning the name, our guide to investing in the magnet metal has the details.
The strategic angle is worth naming, too. A Western deposit rich in the magnet pair, controlled by a defense contractor, sits squarely on the list of assets the United States government has an explicit interest in seeing developed. That does not shorten the permitting timeline, but it does mean the project carries a policy tailwind that a purely commercial junior would not have.
The bottom line
Bear Lodge is a real deposit with the right minerals, a serious strategic owner, and a credible, if slow, path toward production. What it is not is a fast trade. The permitting timeline runs to early 2028, the mine to the end of the decade, and the promotion’s two-year return math has to clear a lot of ground before a single ton is mined at scale. Wyoming’s rare earths may well matter for the magnet economy. They just matter on a mining calendar, not a marketing one.
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