By Brazil Stock Guide –Serra Verde is evaluating investments to add more value to its rare-earth production in Brazil, according to the country’s Mines and Energy Ministry, as the government seeks to ensure that strategic mineral projects support domestic industrial development.
The comments were reported by Agência iNFRA, citing a statement from the ministry after a meeting on Tuesday (19) between Mines and Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira and Thras Moraitis, global chief executive officer of Serra Verde. The company is being acquired by USA Rare Earth Inc. (Nasdaq: USAR) in a transaction valued at $2.8 billion. Serra Verde is privately held.
“Our combination with USA Rare Earth gives us access to new technologies that can add even more value to our product in Brazil, which we are committed to evaluating,” Moraitis said, according to the ministry statement.
The meeting followed criticism from members of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government and allies in Congress over the transfer of control of Serra Verde to the US company. The deal, announced in April, has drawn political attention because rare earths are considered critical inputs for advanced manufacturing, clean-energy technologies and defense-related supply chains.
Silveira said Brazil wants foreign capital, including from the US, but that investment in strategic minerals must be aligned with national sovereignty and domestic economic development.
“Brazil is open to American capital and to capital from any other country that respects our sovereignty. That is the message President Lula gave to the president of the United States and to the whole world,” Silveira said, according to the official statement.
The minister said the government is working on a policy to make international investment in mining a driver of industrial and technological development in Brazil, rather than reinforcing the country’s role as an exporter of raw commodities.
“Everyone knows our potential and our mineral wealth, which is why we are working to build a policy so that international investments, such as Serra Verde’s, are consolidated as a strategic asset for national industrial and mineral development, making our country stop being merely an exporter of commodities,” Silveira said.
Serra Verde operates a rare-earth project in Minaçu, in the state of Goiás. The ministry’s statement signaled that the government wants the company’s integration with USA Rare Earth to expand processing and technology use in Brazil, not only the extraction and export of mineral output.
USA Rare Earth is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker USAR, while Serra Verde remains a private company. Serra Verde said in April that its combination with USA Rare Earth would create a global rare-earth company spanning elements, oxides, metals and magnets.