The ‘White Hill’ is an outcrop of lithium-boron mineralized soil located approximately one-half mile north of the proposed Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine.
Courtesy Ioneer
After years of work to advance the Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine in Esmeralda County, Ioneer late last year secured its federal permit from the Bureau of Land Management and subsequently closed on a nearly $1 billion loan from the Department of Energy.
With those two critical legs of the stool in place, Ioneer will commence construction later this year on the project located about 60 miles southwest of Tonopah, Managing Director Bernard Rowe told NNBW. The final piece of the puzzle is closing a $490 million equity investment for a 50 percent share of the project by joint venture partner Sibanye-Stillwater, with a decision expected to be announced in the coming months, Rowe added.
The record of decision and closing on the loan occurred just months apart, but they are the culmination of thousands of hours of environmental, permitting, engineering and geological work, along with more than $200 million in investment dollars, Rowe said. One of the main reasons the mine received its final record of decision from the BLM in October was the extensive work Ioneer put in to revise and update its mining plan of operations, he added.
“This project is a great example of modern exploration, mining and permitting in the U.S.,” Rowe said. “The engagement has been a joint effort from within and with our outside stakeholders. The project we ended up with is a far better project than what we started with because we listened. To find, permit and design a greenfields mining project anywhere in the world is a phenomenal accomplishment, but to do it eight years after we drilled the first exploration hole is an amazing achievement.
“What you start with inevitably changes along the way due to input from various stakeholders,” Rowe added. “Early engagement with stakeholders, including the local community, tribes, and regional, state and federal government entities was critical in getting this to the finish. We did all that work early, we did it regularly, and we built a reputation that we were willing to listen and try to work on the concerns those groups may have. Our willingness to take the project that was in our minds at the beginning of this process and modify and reshape it into something that was acceptable to everybody is what led to our Record of Decision.”
The ROD was of paramount importance to closing the loan from the DOE’s Loan Programs Office. Ioneer put in its loan application four years ago, Rowe said. An initial consultation was followed by multiple rounds of due diligence, and Ioneer received a conditional commitment in January 2023. Ioneer had to have the permit on record, however, to obtain financing.
“It was critical for us,” Rowe said. “We needed that Record of Decision – you can’t close a loan with the U.S. government or anyone else unless you are fully permitted. That is the debt component of the project financing, and you can’t raise money or structure a deal without having that permit. It really is the gate that you must go through in order to take those final steps.
“It was of paramount importance for the project to have that amount of debt on very favorable terms,” Rowe added. “It is the sort of terms you cannot get anywhere else in the mining industry; it really is the pinnacle of financing for a mining operation.”
Costs for the Rhyolite Ridge project have risen substantially since Ioneer completed its first feasibility study in 2020. At that time, the project’s capital requirement was estimated to be around $800 million. When the conditional loan commitment was received from the Department of Energy in 2023, the project had approximately $1.2 billion of conditional capital financing. Over the few years, the mine’s financial model was extensively reworked and updated, and capital commitments are now approximately $1.5 billion, Rowe said.
“We reworked our resource and reserve estimates, production rates, operating costs and capital costs because the project justified it,” he told NNBW. “But it was that updated economic model, with all things considered, that justified the $1 billion loan. It was what was required in order to obtain that quantity of debt.”
The $996 million loan from the DOE includes $968 million in principal and $28 million in capitalized interest — a 38 percent increase from the conditional commitment that was approved in January 2023.
Rhyolite Ridge is expected to produce an average of 22,000 tons of lithium carbonate and 170,000 tons of boric acid annually. That’s enough lithium to power about 370,000 electric cars each year, Rowe noted. The revenue split between the two commodities is roughly 70 percent lithium and 30 percent boron, though that could change depending on the grade of ore that’s being mined, Rowe said.
The lithium deposit has proven consistent throughout the scope of the project, Rowe said, but boron deposits are lower in certain areas, so boron production will vary depending on commodity prices.
“That’s the benefit of having a very large deposit. When the price of boron is high, we can mine ore that is high in boron. When the price of lithium is high, we will focus more on those higher lithium grades.”
Over the next two quarters, Ioneer will begin ramping up pre-construction efforts, including bringing materials and equipment to the remote site in central Esmeralda County and setting up housing accommodations for a workforce that’s expected to top more than 500 during peak construction.
Initial construction involves extensive earthwork and pouring foundations for the mine’s production and processing equipment. Vertical construction will commence sometime in 2026, Rowe said. Initial production, meanwhile, is slated for 2028. When Rhyolite Ridge does come online, it will be the first new lithium mine in the U.S. in 60 years, and the first new boron mine in nearly a century (two other Nevada lithium projects are vying for that same title, though).
The project is many miles from the power grid, so construction includes development of a steam-fired power plant that will capture otherwise-wasted heat generated during the conversion of sulfur to sulfuric acid.
“We have to have an independent source of power onsite,” Rowe said.
Ioneer has multiple lithium offtake agreements already in place with Ford, Prime Planet Energy & Solutions (a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic), EcoPro Innovation Co. of Korea, and Dragonfly Energy of Reno.
“This is a strategic asset for the United States,” Rowe said. “It will quadruple domestic lithium production overnight and give the U.S. a long-term supply of two critical materials for multiple generations.”