United Rare Earths closes on land purchase with Caryville

‘The company could be in production 14 months ahead of schedule’- CEO Jeffrey Willis

VERY TOP PHOTO: The ground breaking was on December 21, 2023, at the Erschell Collins Industrial Park.

By Charlotte Underwood

CARYVILLE, TN (WLAF)- United Rare Earths closed on its land purchase from the Town of Caryville on Thursday morning, marking a “milestone” as the company moves closer to the goal of opening a magnet recycling facility.

Company CEO Jeffrey Willis and Caryville Mayor David Chambers signed the official paperwork at Caryville City Hall, finalizing the deal on the acreage at the Collins Industrial Park, less than a year after the company held its “groundbreaking ceremony” at the site.

Willis said he felt “relief” to have the land purchase concluded and also shared the exciting news that the “company could be in production 14 months ahead of schedule.”

“It really is a fairly big milestone, because when we started, we talked about doing it, then we optioned it, and all of a sudden the option turns into a point of reality, and we’re just grateful that the city waited on us to get some of this stuff together,” Willis said.

United Rare Earths had until the end of the year to close on the property, but “chose to accelerate the timeline” in order to advance with permitting processes and surveys ahead of schedule.

“We will start next week inquiring about the permitting process, those can take several months, but the sooner we start, the better off we are to get underway. Once that is started, we have an opportunity to discuss with an entity about their technology for recycling that would get us to market sooner,” Willis said, adding that “he could not disclose more information yet,”

“If that one works out, we’re going to be in production 14 months ahead of schedule, along with Oak Ridge, so there was a lot of important reasons to have secured this land to position ourselves to move to the next phase of this,” Willis said.

Willis also said he expects to get information soon on having a ‘further option on more land for phase two, which is the actual separation facility that does the refining.”

United Rare Earths was founded by Jeffrey Willis, John Graves and Dr. Bob Wright and is an “energy company in pursuit of clean and sustainable energy.” The company is creating a “rare earths hub” in Campbell County and is in the process of establishing the first phase of the three-phase project.

The first phase will be a magnet recycling facility, the second phase will be a “separation facility to separate newly mined materials”, and finally the third phase will be research into sustainable energy. Once the facility is up and running, it will result in “high paying jobs” for Campbell County, while “reinforcing the nation’s economic independence and increasing national security,” according to United Rare Earths officials.

The company is “collaborating with Oak Ridge National Laboratories and is focused on developing cutting edge technologies and strategic partnerships that will drive advancements in securing domestic Rare Earths supply chain.”

“Oak Ridge is always going to be critical for us at United because we have agreements with them to help us with technology, new technology, refining current technology, and developing new strategies to do the ultimate objective of building a permanent magnet with more reliable domestic materials, so Oak Ridge is always critical and will be, for the life of this project,” Willis said.

The land at the Collins Industrial Park is an “old coal site from the past that not only possibly has minerals, but also will be renewed to clean energy use,” Willis said, adding that it was the Department of Energy that “found the land and identified the site and asked us to consider it.”

“We got here, and we couldn’t have found a better site to advance in with a better city to do it” Willis said.

Caryville Mayor David Chambers said the closing on the land and the company choosing that location was “great for Caryville and the county.”

“This is another cornerstone in this Industrial Park, that was a special piece of land, that, here 30 years later is a perfect fit for this industry for what Jeffrey and his firm want to do. This is exciting, this is as exciting as it gets, not only for Caryville, but our entire community,” Chambers said. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-11/15/2024-6AM-PHOTOS COURTESY OF WLAF’S CHARLIE HUTSON)