As the Pentagon’s 2027 ban on Chinese-origin rare earth materials moves closer, REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) is locking down exclusive control of the biggest heavy rare earth metallization systems outside of China.
The company says its $20.6 million investment into the Saskatchewan Research Council’s (SRC) rare earth processing facility in Saskatoon secures exclusive preferred rights to up to 80% of expanded production capacity — including commercial-scale NdPr, dysprosium, and terbium output that “no other Western company has secured at this scale,” according to REalloys Chairman Stephen duMont.
Engineering is already underway for the REalloys-funded heavy rare earth metallization facility in Saskatoon, with equipment procurement now moving through Western and allied-nation suppliers as staged commissioning remains on track ahead of the Pentagon’s January 2027 sourcing deadline. “We’re seeing an integrated and sovereign North American mine-to-magnet supply chain take shape in real time,” said REalloys CEO Lipi Sternheim.
And it’s the 11th hour for the U.S. defense establishment.
The American military is burning through precision-guided weapons inventories, and military pundits are sounding alarm bells over China’s ability to cut off defense capabilities with a “single phone call”.
A recent Fortune analysis by Johns Hopkins Economists now estimates that the U.S. has used up roughly 45% of its Precision Strike Missile inventory in Iran alone, along with nearly half of its THAAD interceptors, roughly 30% of its Tomahawk cruise missiles, and more than 20% of its long-range JASSMs. Replenishing all of that will require defense-grade rare earth magnets and materials, which China largely controls.
And at the same time, the Pentagon is pushing a non-Chinese rare earth agenda that sets a harrowing deadline for realization: Defense manufacturers have only seven months to source heavy rare earth magnets that have no Chinese origins of any kind. The panic has already set in, with U.S. defense contractors reportedly privately asking for more time than they are likely to get.
REalloys doesn’t need more time.
It’s already funding processing capacity, securing exclusive commercial supply rights, procuring Western equipment, and moving toward commercial-scale heavy rare earth metallization before the Pentagon deadline hits.
From Saskatchewan to Greenland
In early March, REalloys unveiled its fully-financed buildout of the largest heavy rare earth metallization facility outside of China, in partnership with Canada’s Saskatchewan Research Council’s (SRC).
REalloys is building its supply chain around two linked facilities: The SRC commercial rare earth processing operation and REalloys’ metallization and downstream manufacturing platform in Euclid, Ohio.
SRC handles the upstream separation and refining side of the chain, while REalloys is focused on the more complex downstream step of converting rare earth oxides into defense-grade metals, alloys, and eventually permanent magnets used in defense systems.
Now that the system is scaling to meet the Pentagon’s deadline.
Under its agreements with SRC, REalloys has committed roughly $20.6 million toward targeted upgrades, engineering, permitting, commissioning, and expanded throughput capacity at SRC’s processing facility. The upgrades will increase NdPr metal output by another 25% while doubling dysprosium and terbium production capacity. The facility’s annual target output now stands at roughly 525 tonnes of NdPr, 30 tonnes of dysprosium, and 15 tonnes of terbium.
In exchange, REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) secured exclusive preferred rights to as much as 80% of the facility’s expanded commercial output, giving the company long-term access to some of the only emerging Western commercial-scale heavy rare earth supply outside China.
Separately, REalloys also contracted SRC to design, build, and commission a standalone commercial-scale heavy rare earth metallization system dedicated specifically to dysprosium and terbium metal production. Once completed, that system will be transferred to the Ohio facility, significantly expanding the company’s downstream heavy rare earth metallization capacity.
The Saskatchewan buildout is the biggest heavy rare earth metallization system outside of China, but this is bigger than just North America.
And key to the REalloys story is across the Atlantic, in the rare earths wonderland, Greenland.
Last week, REalloys signed a definitive 15-year offtake agreement with Critical Metals Corp. covering 15% of Phase 1 production from the Tanbreez project in southern Greenland, one of the largest known heavy rare earth deposits in the world and one of the few major Western-aligned projects with substantial dysprosium and terbium concentrations.
Critical Metals has publicly disclosed Phase 1 production capacity of up to 15,000 metric tons of rare earth concentrate annually, with REalloys locking in rights to 15% of monthly production under the agreement. The company also secured priority rights tied specifically to dysprosium- and terbium-rich concentrate streams, together with a right of first refusal on additional volumes.
And Tanbreez is not a typical rare earth deposit.
Critical Metals estimates roughly 27% of the project’s total rare earth profile consists of heavy rare earths, an unusually high concentration in an industry where most major deposits remain dominated by lower-value light rare earth materials.
The strategic implications are becoming hard to ignore. Washington previously lobbied Tanbreez developers not to sell the project to Chinese-linked buyers, while Greenland’s government approved Critical Metals’ move to 92.5% ownership earlier this year as Western governments race to secure non-Chinese supply chains for defense systems, semiconductors, magnets, and advanced manufacturing.
The importance of that supply chain extends well beyond defense. Aerospace manufacturers such as GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE) rely on rare earth magnets and advanced materials across jet engines, avionics, and military systems, making secure non-Chinese supply increasingly strategic.
Consumer technology companies are watching the same trend closely. Rare earth materials remain critical inputs for smartphones, wearables, speakers, and other electronics, giving companies like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) a strong interest in the emergence of reliable Western supply chains.
The AI boom adds another layer of demand. As companies such as NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) continue building advanced computing infrastructure, access to resilient supplies of critical minerals and magnet materials is becoming an increasingly important part of long-term technology and manufacturing planning.
Taken together, the Saskatchewan processing agreements and the Greenland supply deal are starting to form something much bigger: a Western-aligned heavy rare earth pipeline feeding directly into REalloys’ metallization and future magnet manufacturing operations in Ohio.
By. Michael Kern
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