Welcome back everyone. We have an update from Ionic Rare Earths Limited, trades on the ASX under the symbol IXR and on the OTC under the symbol IXRRF, and is leading the secure supply of magnet rare earths, leveraging their sustainable technology, pioneering magnet recycling to drive the next generation of wind turbines, electric vehicles, defense and advanced manufacturing. Happy to welcome Managing Director, Tim Harrison. Tim, welcome to the conference. We're looking forward to hearing your update.
Great. Thanks, Anna. Good to be back. Ionic Rare Earths, as Anna mentioned, we're an Australian-listed company and we're commercializing technology on magnet recycling. Just our disclaimer and an overview of the company. Geographically, we're Australian-based. We're commercializing technology in the U.K. We have an upstream asset in Uganda, which is an ionic adsorption clay. We have a joint venture in Brazil looking to go downstream on recycling and refining. Exciting to be also looking at expanding now our footprint into the U.S. We're recycling permanent magnets that contain a range of heavy rare earths. With our site in Belfast where we've been demonstrating our technology, we've been separating a range of magnet rare earths and expanding that to include other heavy rare earths which are in increasingly rare supply at the moment.
Just a quick overview of our corporate snapshot. Market cap is approximately AUD 65 million. The thematic is extremely strong, as everybody's probably aware on certainly a lot of geopolitical tensions, and global mega trends driving a significant demand for a range of heavy rare earths. Driven by, you know, commitments from NATO to increase spending across the next 10 years, up to 5% of GDP. We've seen significant trends on the uptake and potential for consumption of these materials in EVs and the transition to renewable energy. Three aspects of our business. Obviously, Ionic Technologies business in the U.K. where we're commercializing that tech. We've demonstrated the technology, we've made materials, and we've built supply chains here. We're validating those supply chains, and we've got some exciting things that'll happen over coming weeks.
We've got our Viridion joint venture working with Viridis Mining and Minerals, where we're looking at taking our technology and deploying that in the Brazilian market, plus also developing a refinery. We've got our Makuutu rare earth project. We own 60% of that large ionic adsorption clay project, which is a development-ready asset, fully mined, permitted environmental permits, and ready to move to the next phase of development. Importantly, the Makuutu asset has got 45% heavy rare earths in its basket. Touching upon the magnet recycling business, Ionic Technologies. In Belfast, we're running a demonstration plant. We've been running that demonstration plant for over two years, producing separated oxides, which have gone into the supply chain, gone into validation with our partners. The plant capacity can produce approximately 10 tonnes per annum, and it's been strongly supported by the U.K. government.
We have developed a feasibility study targeting a 400 tonne per annum commercial plant. We continue to work on developing the capital structure for the project, and we expect to be closing out the financing in the third quarter of this year. Looking at the economics for the Belfast facility. Capital development of GBP 85 million, which is a bit over $100 million. Payback is around 2.4 years when we look at the numbers in 2024. However, pricing has moved quickly in that period. We expect that the economics is going to improve significantly when we rerun the numbers. We've developed supply chains here in the U.K.
Started a few years ago where we developed a supply chain with Less Common Metals, which was recently acquired by USA Rare Earth, and also Ford, with magnets being made by another partner, GKN. We've taken that supply chain and we've expanded it last year adding two more U.K.-based OEMs, plus an upstream scrap recycler to complete the supply chain. With Vacuumschmelze, a German magnet manufacturer who is commercializing in South Carolina, we are completing the supply chain here in the U.K. in a model that we look to bring to the U.S. For our Belfast commercial plant, we've received a U.K. government grant of GBP 12 million, we expect with additional support from the U.K. government completing that capital in the third quarter of this year. We continue to build relationships across the supply chain.
We've got relationships upstream on recycling and the recovery of scrap from EMR, who I mentioned earlier. Downstream relationships with the magnet manufacturer, one of those being JS Link, which is a Korean magnet manufacturer. Last year, importantly for U.S. investors, we signed an MoU with US Strategic Metals to look at developing our technology on their fully permitted site in Missouri. We continue discussions and progressing positively with stakeholders in the U.S. to look at not only replicating what we're doing in Belfast with NdFeB magnet recycling, but also adding samarium, cobalt, and yttrium recycling. The opportunity we see in the U.S. is incredibly exciting. The catalytic capital with about $3.5 billion of U.S. government support is part of $13 billion that's been invested across the mine to magnets supply chain in the U.S.
An area that's probably often overlooked is the amount of SWARF that's likely to be generated by such capacity. That $13 billion will generate somewhere in the order of 45,000 tons per annum of NdFeB magnet capacity. When we look at the projected swarf and waste that's generated from that production mass, we estimate there's approximately 20,000 tons per annum of NdFeB SWARF that will be generated from that process. Importantly, our technology can process that material plus end of life, providing that material back via our patented long-loop recycling process, providing separated magnet rare earths to enable the capacity and production of new metals and alloys, therefore closing the loop and ensuring a most efficient supply chain for the U.S.
Looking at pricing and the dynamics that is happening in the bifurcation of supply chains over the past 12 months since the implementation of export controls by China last year, we've seen a significant disconnect between Chinese pricing on heavy rare earths, specifically dysprosium, which is roughly trading at over nearly seven times the price in the West compared to Chinese prices, roughly AUD 1.5 million a ton. When we look at terbium, that's pushing up towards AUD 5 million a ton, and it's approximately nearly five times the price that we'd see in China. The real star performer over the past 12 months is yttrium. Yttrium's up roughly 145 times relative to the price in China today.
You know, our focus remains, you know, extremely keen on developing Western heavy rare earth capacity to be able to facilitate these new supply chains. Closing out on our investment highlights. You know, we are a first mover in the development of magnet recycling and production of separated magnet rare earths, which are incredibly important for the production of new magnets. We have extremely good economics on the development of Belfast, a commercial magnet recycling plant. The model there is to develop that project in a way that will enable us to hyperscale the technology on multiple sites across the U.S. and other jurisdictions. We've received strong U.K. government support. We're in discussions with the U.S. for further progress on the financing and deployment of our technology.
I mentioned before our patented technology enables a wide range of different feeds, which we can process via a hydrometallurgical path to high purity separated oxides. We've cultivated strategic partnerships and relationships demonstrating supply chains and evaluating products for potential customers, and we look forward to talking more about that in coming weeks. Viridion joint venture that we've established with Viridis has progressed to the point where we're now looking at commercializing or certainly demonstrating our magnet recycling technology in the Brazilian market and also bringing towards bringing to market a refinery that will be capable of processing ionic adsorption clay feedstock in Brazil. Finally, our Mucutu asset is an ionic adsorption clay that's development ready, and we're assessing options to realize the value in the asset going forward.
Finally, we have an execution roadmap centered on near-term development of our magnet recycling and the expansion of our technology into new markets. With that, Anna, I am open to taking some questions, please.
Thank you, Tim. Okay, we have time for just one question to kind of wrap it up. Talk about the key investor milestones for Ionic in 2026.
As we round out 2026, big focus now is on commercializing Belfast. Closing out the capital stack, working through the permitting, completing front-end engineering design, which we hope to commence shortly, and then getting to an investment decision later this year. Beyond that, we're excited about the potential to replicate that opportunity in the U.S. and move towards being a multi-asset producer of magnet rare earths in our target markets.
Perfect. Well, thank you so much. Great update. Exciting times for this industry, we certainly wanna have you back in the future for more.
Great. Thank you, Anna.
Thank you, Tim. Everyone, we'll be right back.