Rare Earth Elements Market Projected to Reach $10.44 Billion by 2030

DALLAS, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- American News Group News Commentary - The global rare earth elements market is expected to grow from $6.86 billion in 2026 to $10.44 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 11.1%, according to The Business Research Company, which identifies North America as the fastest-growing region. The pressure point, however, is not tonnage. It is the heavy rare earths and yttrium, where Western supply remains thinnest and where a single policy deadline now sits less than two months away. Active Companies from around the markets with current developments this week include: Tactical Resources Corp. (NASDAQ: TREO), USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR), MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP), Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU), NioCorp Developments Ltd. (NASDAQ: NB).

A separate forecast from Persistence Market Research values the market at $7.8 billion in 2026 and projects $15.4 billion by 2033, a 10.2% compound annual growth rate, with North America again the fastest-growing region at roughly 13.6% a year. The firm ties that regional outperformance to the U.S. commitment to building fully integrated domestic rare earth supply chains.

The policy backdrop explains why. On April 4, 2025, China placed seven medium and heavy rare earths, namely samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium, under case-by-case export licensing, and those controls remain in force. A broader package of measures announced in October 2025 was suspended for one year following U.S.-China trade talks, and that suspension is scheduled to expire on November 10, 2026 unless Beijing extends or modifies it.

The result is a two-tier market. Rare Earth Exchanges, citing S&P Global, reported a September dysprosium oxide transaction in North America at $3,250 per kilogram and terbium oxide at $7,500 per kilogram, against Chinese reference prices of roughly $212 to $218 and $988 to $997 per kilogram respectively. Those ex-China figures are individual reported transactions rather than a published spot price, but Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has made the same underlying point: for heavy rare earths, the ex-China dysprosium-terbium premium is the economic signal required to bring new capacity online.

Sentiment moved again this week. After President Trump announced on September 18 a security agreement involving the United States, Denmark and Greenland, U.S.-listed rare earth equities traded sharply higher on Monday, even though commentators noted the agreement grants no mining rights and its text had not yet been published.

Tactical Resources Corp. (NASDAQ: TREO) Announces Plans to Advance the Peak Project, Texas, USA

Heavy rare earths plus yttrium averaging more than twice the light rare earths in the Company's analytical dataset

Scoping-scale TREE+Y extraction ranging from under 25.3% to 96.1%, depending on reagent and test condition

Approximately four million tons of pre-crushed fines under a March 2026 purchase and sale agreement, and an April 2026 asset purchase agreement covering approximately 1.5 million tons of that material

Exclusive option to acquire 100% of Sierra Blanca Quarry, LLC for cash and stock

Next phase focused on process development, permitting and environmental roadmaps, downstream partnerships and updated technical reports

Tactical Resources Corp. (NASDAQ: TREO) a U.S.-focused rare earth elements company, has provided an update on its initial plans to advance its Peak Project in Hudspeth County, Texas, following the Company's Nasdaq listing. Peak sits within the active Sierra Blanca Quarry, roughly 90 miles southeast of El Paso, and focuses on rare earth-enriched pre-crushed fines stockpiles generated by two decades of railway ballast crushing. The Company's 2022 NI 43-101 / S-K 1300 technical report described that material as already mined, crushed, conveyed and stockpiled, and identified road access, a rail spur, power and space for project work at the quarry.

The heavy rare earth profile is what sets the project apart. The Company reports that its analytical dataset showed heavy rare earth elements plus yttrium averaging more than twice the light rare earth elements, with a comparable profile returned by independent samples collected by the Qualified Person during a site inspection. Mineralogical work at the University of Texas at Austin identified accessory minerals including cassiterite, columbite, yttrofluorite, yttrocerite, thorite and zircon, and the material also showed enrichment in lithium, niobium, rubidium, yttrium and zirconium.

"Peak is a very special project in this sector because the potential feedstock material is already out of the ground. Two decades of quarry operations produced it, and it is sitting on surface in West Texas. Our technical work has concentrated on whether that material can be processed, and on the heavy rare earth profile it carries, which is where the United States is most exposed. With the Nasdaq listing complete, we are moving the project into its next phase," said Ranjeet Sundher, Chief Executive Officer of Tactical.

Initial metallurgical work by Kemetco Research Inc. tested four leach conditions, and the Company has reported results from all four. Preliminary total rare earth plus yttrium extraction ran from less than 25.3% under ambient-temperature hydrochloric acid bottle-roll testing to between 95.6% and 96.1% under heated hydrochloric acid agitated-tank conditions, with the two sulfuric acid tests returning between 88% and 93%. The work also identified lithium as a potential by-product for further study. The Company is explicit that these were scoping-scale results from composite samples that do not establish commercial-scale recovery, and that further work is required on material variability, reagent consumption, impurity removal, production of saleable products and waste handling.

On the commercial side, Tactical entered into a Purchase and Sale Agreement with Sierra Blanca Quarry, LLC in March 2026 covering approximately four million tons of pre-crushed fines, rights to additional fines produced thereafter, and an exclusive option to acquire 100% of the membership interests of Sierra Blanca Quarry, LLC for a blend of cash and stock. In April 2026, Tactical entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement covering approximately 1.5 million tons of that material, which the Company describes as the first tranche of a staged acquisition strategy. No mineral resources or mineral reserves have been estimated for the stockpiled material, and the tonnages come from the Company's commercial agreements rather than from a resource estimate.

Pending results from its Phase 1 metallurgical program, where column-leach testing is ongoing, the Company is pre-planning the next phase of work at Peak: finalizing Phase 1 results, advancing process development, developing permitting and environmental roadmaps, growing downstream strategic partnerships, establishing engineering workflows, expanding exploration and geological studies, and updating its technical reports. Tactical has also engaged Forte Dynamics Inc. to review available data, conduct a gap analysis and develop a roadmap toward a preliminary economic assessment. The Company's common shares began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol TREO on August 20, 2026.

Tactical Resources Corp. (NASDAQ: TREO) is a natural resources company focused on rare earth elements critical to advanced technologies, including semiconductors, electric vehicles, robotics, aerospace systems and national defense applications. It is advancing the Peak Project in Hudspeth County, Texas, as part of its strategy to help build a secure domestic supply chain and reduce reliance on foreign-controlled sources, and is also pursuing metallurgical processing and separation technologies. More information is available at www.tacticalresources.com.

There are several risks associated with the Company's plans. The Peak Project remains an early-stage project, Tactical has not completed mineral resource estimation work, and no preliminary economic assessment, pre-feasibility study or feasibility study has been completed. Metallurgical results to date are scoping-scale results from composite samples and may not be representative of the stockpiled material as a whole or achievable at commercial scale. The feedstock and quarry agreements remain subject to their respective terms and conditions, and exercising the quarry option would require capital. As a recently listed company, Tactical will need additional financing to advance the project, which may not be available on acceptable terms, and its share price may be volatile. Readers should review the risk factors in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the registration statement on Form F-4 filed in connection with the Company's Nasdaq listing and the Company's subsequent filings, and the forward-looking statements in the Company's news release.

In other industry developments and happenings in the market this week include:

USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR), whose Round Top heavy rare earth and critical minerals deposit sits near Sierra Blanca in the same corner of West Texas, recently announced the completion of its combination with Serra Verde Group on September 3, 2026. Serra Verde's mining and processing operation in Goiás, Brazil began production in January 2024, and USA Rare Earth describes it as the only scaled producer of all four magnetic and other critical heavy rare earth elements outside Asia, with a first-stage run-rate of approximately 4,000 tons per annum of total rare earth oxide expected by the end of 2026.

The company has since broken ground on a rare earth metal and magnet manufacturing facility in Blacksburg, South Carolina, an investment it puts at approximately $1.2 billion, and on September 17 announced a strategic partnership with Pasqal and Riven Systems to develop next-generation separation technology using quantum machine learning. The work will be tailored to USA Rare Earth's feedstocks, expected to include the Round Top mine, third-party mixed rare earth carbonates and recycled magnet swarf.

MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP), which operates the Mountain Pass rare earth mine and processing facility in California and a metal, alloy and magnet manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas, reported second quarter 2026 NdPr production of 840 metric tons, up 41% year over year, and NdPr sales of 1,006 metric tons, up 127%. Consolidated revenue rose 89% to $108.5 million, and the company signed a long-term offtake agreement with a new American aerospace and defense customer for separated gadolinium.

"We also signed a significant long-term agreement to supply gadolinium to a new U.S. aerospace and defense customer at attractive economics, expanding both our customer base and our heavy rare earth product portfolio," said James Litinsky, Founder, Chairman and CEO of MP Materials, who added that magnet qualification at Independence advanced and construction of the company's 10X facility accelerated during the quarter.

Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU) has begun construction on an expansion of its White Mesa Mill in Utah to enable large-scale production of heavy rare earth oxides, a project it estimates at approximately $104 million and expects to support in large part through government grants and loans. The expansion is also expected to include a circuit for processing mixed rare earth carbonates, allowing the Mill to handle feedstocks produced globally that are rich in heavy rare earth oxides.

"Heavy rare earth production is a severe pinch point in North American and European permanent magnet supply chains," said Ross Bhappu, President and Chief Executive Officer of Energy Fuels. In its second quarter results, the company also pointed to a conditional loan commitment of $725 million from the Office of Strategic Capital, planned acquisitions of VAC and ASM to add rare earth metal, alloy and magnet capacity, and continued advancement of its Donald Project joint venture in Australia as a near-term source of rare earth feedstock.

NioCorp Developments Ltd. (NASDAQ: NB) recently reported the results of an updated 2026 feasibility study for its Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in southeast Nebraska, outlining a 40-year integrated operation with a pre-tax NPV8% of $4.1 billion, an after-tax NPV8% of $3.4 billion, a pre-tax IRR of 24% and an after-tax IRR of 22.8%. The planned product slate spans eight products, including ferroniobium, scandium trioxide, titanium tetrachloride, NdPr oxide, dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide.

"Our 2026 feasibility study transforms the Elk Creek project into the kind of critical minerals project the United States needs to have online as soon as possible," said Mark A. Smith, Executive Chairman and CEO of NioCorp. The company has also signed a non-binding MOU with Lockheed Martin regarding the potential purchase of up to 15 tonnes per year of scandium oxide, and in February 2026 began construction of the project's main underground access portal, an approximately $44.6 million effort.

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References to USA Rare Earth, Inc., MP Materials Corp., Energy Fuels Inc. and NioCorp Developments Ltd. are provided solely as market and sector context. Those companies are not peers, competitors, or financial comparables of Tactical Resources Corp., none of them is involved in this article, and their results, valuations, study economics and development milestones are not indicative of Tactical Resources Corp.'s prospects. The reference to the location of USA Rare Earth's Round Top deposit is geographic context only and does not imply any geological, commercial or other relationship between that deposit and the Peak Project. No partnership, affiliation, or endorsement is implied. Market-size figures cited are third-party projections for the global rare earth elements market as a whole and do not represent revenue addressable by, or attributable to, any company named in this article. Rare earth prices cited are reported third-party figures that vary by source, purity, volume and origin.

Cautionary Note Regarding Mineral Exploration and Metallurgical Results. The Peak Project is an early-stage project. Tactical Resources Corp. has not defined any mineral resource or mineral reserve at the Peak Project, and no preliminary economic assessment, pre-feasibility study or feasibility study has been completed. Tonnage figures for the pre-crushed fines stockpiled material are derived from the Company's commercial agreements and are not estimates of mineral resources or mineral reserves. Metallurgical extraction results referenced in this article are preliminary, scoping-scale results from composite samples, varied widely by reagent and test condition, and do not establish commercial-scale recovery. Analytical results reflect a limited number of samples and may not be representative of the stockpiled material as a whole. Nothing in this article should be read as indicating that a production decision has been made or is supported by a feasibility study. The scientific and technical information about the Peak Project in this article is derived from the Company's news release dated September 22, 2026 and its NI 43-101 / S-K 1300 technical report with an effective date of September 15, 2022. According to the Company, that information was reviewed and approved by Roy Eccles, P. Geol., of APEX Geoscience Ltd. (geological information) and Norman Chow, M.A.Sc., P. Eng., President of Kemetco Research Inc. (metallurgical information), each described by the Company as an independent qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Neither qualified person has reviewed or approved this article. Readers should consult the Company's filings with the SEC, available at www.sec.gov, for further information.

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