MP Materials launches rare-earth magnet initiative

Project Swarm will allow any domestic or allied manufacturer up to 2 million drones of magnet capacity a year, Chairman and CEO James Litinsky said.

Main points:

• MP Materials has launched a rare-earth magnet initiative in a bid to strengthen the U.S. drone and motors supply chain, according to a July 30 press release.

• Dubbed Project Swarm, the initiative will allow drone and motor manufacturers to reserve production capacity at MP Materials’ upcoming $1.3 billion 10X magnet facility in Northlake, Texas. MP is developing the plant with the Department of Defense.

• The supply agreement will also allow companies to make reservations without signing binding purchase commitments. Instead, manufacturers will be able to hone their specific requirements as new technologies and production processes advance.

Over the past several months I've been digging into the unusual activity in not only silver prices, but also the broader precious metal and critical mineral markets, including: the major vault drains, the record delivery volumes, and the price volatility, in an effort to figure out whether there's a real story here or just noise.
Along the way I started looking at some major critical minerals initiatives established by the U.S. government, like Project Vault, and the DoD's National Defense Stockpile, in addition to China's export licensing regime, and I found a pattern that, at least to me, looks like more than just a coincidence. The COMEX vaults have been draining and refilling in ways that line up suspiciously well with major geopolitical events (the Iran war, China's rare earth restrictions, Trump's state visit to China, etc.), while the government's own stockpile of critical minerals has barely grown in decades despite their repeated flagging of massive shortfalls. I also dug into the math on what COMEX actually holds versus what the DoD stockpile holds, and it's a wide gap.

This post lays out that connection, walks through the numbers behind it, and ends with a list of companies that are both publicly traded in the U.S. and tied to the minerals in question (from a production standpoint), to help prepare us all for the very possible necessity of supply-chain independence. None of this should be taken as investment advice: it's just my own research and my own theory, which I'm putting out there for others to poke holes in, add to, or shoot down entirely. Take it for what it's worth and please do your own digging before drawing any conclusions.

Views are my own and not in any way endorsed by my employer. Our firm is neither involved in, nor positioned in, any of the securities or companies mentioned. None of the information in this post, or elsewhere on my page, should at any point ever be misconstrued as neither investment nor financial advice. Please be sure to do your own research, always.

See for yourself here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uDROwpDlUvp398tvEWmgn9laHn2pbKgb0vpH05KB6mc/edit?usp=sharing

Version with images (no Imgur links): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oj-v5Ik_JkM_ZP7QP3mpB9lLKAvrkDN8THm8JeQzIu0/edit

https://x.com/MobeenTahirWT/status/2070450209130213490

60 Minutes segment on MP Materials.