American Resources Corp (NASDAQ:AREC) announced a new strategic collaboration involving its affiliated minority holding, ReElement Technologies Corporation, and Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, aimed at strengthening rare earth and critical mineral supply chains across the United States and Japan.
The agreement includes a strategic investment by Mitsubishi Materials in ReElement, signaling support for the company’s refining-focused approach to processing rare earth elements and other critical minerals.
The partnership is intended to advance scalable and economically viable supply chain solutions for use in commercial and defense sectors.
Under the collaboration, the companies plan to combine capabilities in feedstock sourcing, preprocessing, and refining. In the US, efforts will center on supporting ReElement’s refining operations through sourcing and processing arrangements, as well as potential offtake agreements, with the goal of expanding domestic refining capacity.
In Japan, the companies will evaluate opportunities to commercialize recycling solutions for rare earth elements and critical minerals. This initiative is expected to draw on Mitsubishi Materials’ existing recycling infrastructure alongside ReElement’s proprietary chromatographic refining technology.
ReElement’s refining platform is designed to process a range of feedstocks, including recycled materials, mine waste, and primary ores, into high-purity mineral products.
According to the company, its chromatography-based method differs from conventional solvent-based techniques by offering a modular and potentially lower-impact alternative, with reduced capital and operating requirements.
The partnership is intended to address challenges in the midstream segment of the supply chain, particularly the separation and purification of materials at scale. It could support both industrial competitiveness and supply chain security in the long term, the company added.
"By combining MMC's expertise in feedstock sourcing and recycling with ReElement's refining-first platform, we are advancing a scalable and economically viable solution to the midstream bottleneck - one that supports both national security and long-term industrial competitiveness."
Shares of American Resources added 9.4% to trade around $2.46 on Tuesday morning.