USA Rare Earth to build $1.2B magnet plant in S.C., 490 jobs

USA Rare Earth plans to build a $1.2 billion magnet and refined metals facility at Bailey Industrial Park in Blacksburg, Cherokee County, South Carolina. The company said the project will create about 490 high-skill, high-wage jobs and expand domestic rare earth manufacturing capacity.

The Blacksburg plant is expected to produce 6,400 metric tons per year of sintered neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets and 5,000 metric tons per year of strip-cast metals and alloys. Combined with USA Rare Earth’s existing operation in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the company expects total U.S. capacity to reach about 10,000 metric tons annually for both magnets and heavy rare earth strip-cast metals and alloys.

Engineering work and equipment procurement for the South Carolina site are under way, with site construction expected to begin in the coming months and commissioning targeted for 2028. USA Rare Earth secured a confirmed energy supply from Duke Energy for the facility.

The company said the magnets and refined metals will serve industries that rely on secure rare earth supplies, including aerospace, defense, semiconductor manufacturing, artificial intelligence hardware, medical imaging, energy technologies and advanced manufacturing. The U.S. Department of Defense plans to ban Chinese-origin sintered NdFeB magnets for defense applications starting January 2027. China currently supplies roughly 90% of processed rare earth minerals and magnet production.

USA Rare Earth’s shares rose more than 4% on the announcement, trading around $30.84 at the time of writing. The company is also backed by a separate $1.6 billion debt-and-equity funding package from the U.S. government to support development of another facility in Texas; some lawmakers have raised questions about the structure and implications of that financing.

Barbara Humpton, chief executive officer of USA Rare Earth, called Cherokee County “the next critical link in the rare earth and magnet value chain we are building across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and around the globe.” South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster welcomed the investment, saying the $1.2 billion project and the creation of approximately 490 jobs “will have a significant impact on Cherokee County.”