American Resources Corporation AREC recently announced that it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) to enter award negotiations under the Mines & Metals Capacity Expansion – Piloting Byproduct Critical Minerals and Materials Recovery at Domestic Industrial Facilities funding opportunity.
The selection positions the company among only five organizations chosen under Topic Area 1: Mines & Metals Pilots – Coal-Based Industry, which is aimed at supporting pilot-scale facilities that recover rare earth elements and other critical materials from coal and coal-based feedstocks.
American Resources will lead a consortium to develop and evaluate an integrated processing strategy for recovering rare earth elements and other critical minerals from unconventional domestic feedstocks, particularly coal byproducts.
The project will assess commercially viable, high-technology-readiness-level processing methods that can efficiently concentrate, condition and prepare complex feedstocks before they undergo advanced refining and separation. The initiative is intended to establish an optimized front-end process capable of producing feedstocks suitable for large-scale critical mineral production.
A key participant in the consortium is ReElement Technologies Corporation, in which AREC holds a minority ownership interest. ReElement is expected to contribute its proprietary chromatographic refining and separation technology, which is designed to efficiently separate and purify rare earth elements and other critical minerals into market-ready products. The collaboration combines American Resources' feedstock processing expertise with ReElement's advanced refining capabilities to create an integrated domestic supply chain.
The DOE program is part of a $75 million federal initiative supporting five pilot projects to recover rare earth elements and other critical minerals from coal-based resources. The initiative aims to strengthen U.S. supply chains, reduce import dependence and advance the commercialization of critical mineral technologies. The selected projects will be managed by the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory following successful completion of award negotiations.
Per AREC, the key challenge is not locating critical minerals within coal-based byproducts but creating an efficient and commercially practical process to recover, concentrate, separate and refine them into marketable products. The DOE selection highlights the consortium's integrated approach and its potential to help establish a secure domestic critical mineral supply chain while supporting U.S. industrial and national security objectives.
Management emphasized that the opportunity validates the company's long-term efforts to develop economically viable solutions for extracting critical minerals from unconventional domestic resources.
Shares of AREC are up 59.3% over the past year compared with the industry’s 32.4% rise.
AREC’s Zacks Rank & Key Picks
AREC carries a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell).
Some better-ranked stocks in the Basic Materials space are CSW Industrials, Inc. CSW, Idaho Strategic Resources, Inc. IDR and Southern Copper Corporation SCCO. CSW, IDR and SCCO carry a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CSW’s current-year earnings stands at $12.52 per share, implying a 20.6% year-over-year increase. Its earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters and missed once, with the average surprise being 3.8%.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for IDR’s current-year earnings is pegged at $1.52 per share, implying a 33.3% year-over-year increase. Its earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters and missed once, with the average surprise being 68.7%.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SCCO’s current-year earnings is pegged at $7.8 per share, indicating a 48.9% year-over-year increase. Its earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average surprise being 9.1%.
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American Resources Corporation (AREC): Free Stock Analysis Report
Southern Copper Corporation (SCCO): Free Stock Analysis Report
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CSW Industrials, Inc. (CSW): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).