Days after President Donald Trump announced a security agreement with Greenland and Denmark, Greenland Mines applied on Sept. 21 to double the size of its rare earth mine to supply magnet metals needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense systems on the island.

The North Carolina-based company’s Sarfartoq rare earth district in southwest Greenland would expand from 74 square miles to about 175 square miles if approved.

“This application is about building Sarfartoq at district scale,” said Bo Moller Stensgaard, president of Greenland Mines in a statement.

Greenland Mines is developing a rare earth neodymium and praseodymium project that could reduce the Western Hemisphere’s dependence on China for the magnet rare earth minerals. China-based processors control at least 75 percent of the global market for all rare earth elements.

The Greenland Mines project is expected to produce about one-third of the world’s neodymium-praseodymium oxide refined outside of China, serving as a key source of the rare earth ingredients needed for energy, transportation, and defense technologies.

China’s export restrictions on rare earths have driven prices up in the past year. The Trump administration has focused on supporting and investing in domestic rare earth operations, but a supply of ore is still needed, according to Greenland Mines.

With the signing of the security agreement, Trump said no U.S. adversary could “make sensitive investments [in Greenland] without our express written approval.”

“Greenland hosts some of the largest known undeveloped rare earth deposits in the Western world, and a framework that screens adversary capital out of the island makes those deposits more clearly available to allied supply chains,” the company stated Tuesday.

https://americafirstreport.com/greenland-mining-company-plans-to-double-size-of-rare-earth-mine-as-us-signs-agreement/