USA Rare Earth Extends Its Supply Chain Into France

USA Rare Earth opened the door to a more serious transatlantic buildout on Thursday with a deal that adds some European muscle to its magnet production strategy based in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The company said it has entered an investment term sheet with InfraVia under which each would hold about 12.5% of Carester, a French rare earth processing and separation specialist, with USA Rare Earth agreeing to pay €40 million for its slice. The broader partnership gives USA Rare Earth and its Less Common Metals unit rights to purchase some of Carester’s oxide output from the Caremag facility, along with access to Carester’s engineering capabilities and related intellectual property. This deal carries some real industrial value, since buying pre-processed oxide is a much cleaner starting point than beginning with raw material and then funding every complicated step needed to refine it into something useful.


The value of the arrangement becomes easier to see in Lacq, where Carester is building infrastructure designed to handle the technical work that sits between concentrate and magnets. USA Rare Earth said the deal fits into a broader platform there for rare earth processing, metal and alloy production, and potentially magnet manufacturing. More specifically, the structure includes a 15-year supply arrangement under which excess concentrate from Round Top or other USA Rare Earth sources would go to Caremag, along with a 15-year offtake arrangement under which USA Rare Earth would take the oxides produced from the contributed concentrate. That matters because it gives the company a path to move material farther down the value chain without having to build every step of oxide processing on its own, giving it a more practical starting point as it pushes deeper into metals, alloys, and magnets.

USA Rare Earth said the partnership can provide key oxide supply for its French project in Lacq, including heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium, while Carester gets long-term access to feedstock from Round Top, which the company expects to begin commercial operation in late 2028. That gives the deal more substance than a routine stake purchase, because it ties future feedstock, processing, and downstream ambition into the same frame. It also gives USA Rare Earth a better chance to show that its strategy extends beyond owning resources and into moving material toward commercial use.

There is still at least one important piece in the planning stage. Company executives said a potential magnet-making facility in southern France remains in the early planning stage, and no timeline was given. Even so, the actual win here is that USA Rare Earth added know-how, oxide access, and another piece of industrial footing in Europe, with Caremag in Lacq due to come online in late 2026 and LCM Europe developing a metal and alloy facility alongside it. For investors, that gives the company more than a promising deposit story because it adds another practical link in the chain from feedstock to magnets.

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