New Administration Declares Thirteen Minerals Found in Texas Mineral Resource Round Top Project as Critical Minerals

Rare Earth Deposits & Mining

Round Top project contains 13 of the 35 “critical minerals” deemed “critical to U.S. national security and the economy” by the Department of the Interior. The U.S. is 100% dependent on foreign sources for 7 of the 13 “critical minerals” contained in the Round Top project.

Texas Mineral Resources Corp., based in Sierra Blanca, in west Texas in Hudspeth County, Texas, 85 miles east of El Paso, is an exploration company targeting the heavy rare earths and a variety of other high-value elements and industrial minerals. The Round Top project, located seventy miles southeast of El Paso, contains 13 of the 35 minerals deemed “critical” by the Department of the Interior in its final report dated May 18, 2018:  https://www.usgs.gov/news/interior-releases-2018-s-final-list-35-minerals-deemed-critical-us-national-security-and

At full production, the Round Top project would potentially produce commercial quantities of the following thirteen “critical minerals”:

·         Rare Earths (Round Top project contains 82% heavy rare earths)

·         Lithium

·         Beryllium

·         Scandium

·         Uranium

·         Cesium

·         Gallium

·         Hafnium

·         Magnesium

·         Manganese

·         Rubidium

·         Strontium

·         Zirconium

Under Executive Order of December 2017, the Commerce Department will now organize an interagency response by August 18, 2018 in a report due to the President which will include, among other things:

1. A strategy to reduce the U.S. reliance on “critical minerals”
2. Ways to increase discovery, production and domestic refining of “critical minerals”
3. Recommendations to streamline lease permitting and review processes

“It is no coincidence that TMRC has seen a heightened interest in its Round Top project since President Trump’s Executive Order,” commented Dan Gorski, CEO.  “We are in discussions with parties who have an interest both in the Round Top project as well as our American Mineral Reclamation subsidiary.  As a result, we have chosen not to extend the MOU signed in November 2017 with an investor group and which recently expired.”

“The formulation of a critical minerals list is a welcome development,” said Anthony Marchese, Chairman of TMRC.  “The question now is whether government policy will move from awareness to action.  If mineral development becomes a true priority, private markets will respond.”

In the past 3 years, TMRC has been part of teams selected for two U.S. Government grants, one from the Department of Defense and the other from the Department of Energy (DoE).  TMRC’s successful demonstration project for the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) focused on the high-purity processing of specific high-value rare earths – included in the new Critical Minerals List.  TMRC is currently part of a team working on a DoE grant to extract REEs from coal overburden.