Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE: UUUU) (TSX: EFR) climbed 16.3% in premarket trading Thursday after the U.S. Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital awarded the uranium producer a conditional loan commitment of up to $725 million to expand domestic rare earth processing, ramping up Washington’s push to reduce reliance on Chinese supply chains for critical minerals.
Shares traded at $17.79 in early New York premarket action, putting the stock on track for one of its sharpest single-day gains this month.
Backed by additional private capital, the financing will fund the construction of new rare earth separation and metallization facilities, marking Energy Fuels’ formal expansion into the midstream segment of the rare earth value chain. The company already runs uranium processing and rare earth oxide separation operations at its White Mesa Mill in Utah, providing an established industrial base to scale production of inputs for permanent magnet manufacturing.
Once operational, the expanded capacity will supply permanent magnet facilities across the broader U.S. industrial base, strengthening supply chains for specialty defense systems, electric vehicles, wind turbines and medical imaging equipment, the OSC said in a release. The deal marks the agency’s second major rare earth funding announcement this week, following a $500 million conditional loan commitment to Phoenix Tailings earlier in the week to scale domestic rare earth processing.
U.S. efforts to onshore critical mineral production have accelerated in the wake of Chinese export curbs on rare earth magnets, a core component across advanced manufacturing and clean energy sectors. For fiscal 2026, the OSC has now committed more than $5 billion in debt financing for industrial and defense-related projects, helping mobilize over $11 billion in combined public and private capital focused on supply chain resilience.
“Energy Fuels’ expansion into rare earth midstream processing represents a key solution to a national bottleneck that needs to be rapidly addressed,” said David A. Lorch, director of the DoW’s Office of Strategic Capital and senior adviser to Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg.
“Recent events have underscored the urgency of building durable supply chains for critical materials, and Energy Fuels is positioned to help lead that effort through a vertically integrated strategy,” Ross Bhappu, the company’s president and CEO, said in a separate statement.
The loan remains subject to standard financial, legal and technical due diligence requirements before closing, the OSC said, without disclosing further details on conditions or a disbursement timeline.
Thursday’s premarket rally follows a comparable jump earlier this month, when Energy Fuels shares rallied after affirming it was on track to meet full-year uranium production guidance by mid-2026. Analysts have projected robust revenue growth in coming quarters as the company ramps up high-margin uranium output and advances a series of strategic acquisitions.
The investment is part of the Trump administration’s broader push to build a complete domestic “mine-to-magnet” rare earth supply chain, as geopolitical tensions and export controls expose longstanding vulnerabilities in Western access to critical minerals.
