Brazil · Rare Earths · Company & Project Analysis
Aclara Resources and the Carina Rare Earths Project in Brazil
Carina is not simply a Brazilian rare-earth mine. It is the Brazilian upstream pillar of Aclara’s vertically integrated heavy rare-earth platform: ionic-clay extraction and MREC production in Goiás, U.S. separation in Louisiana, and further metals, alloys and potential magnet-chain integration.
Aclara Resources has advanced the Carina Rare Earths Project to feasibility-study level, but the project is still moving through permitting, financing and execution preparation.
The April 2026 FS models an 18-year mine life based on 170.8 Mt of Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves at 1,745 ppm TREO. Average annual production is projected at 4,378 tonnes of rare-earth oxides in MREC, including 1,191 t NdPr, 156 t Dy and 27 t Tb.
Total construction capex is estimated at US$780.9 million. The FS reports a US$1.661 billion post-tax NPV8, 26.9% post-tax IRR and 2.9-year payback.
The strategic distinction is downstream. Carina’s economics include a large separation charge, while the value of Aclara’s planned U.S. separation business is evaluated separately. Carina is therefore best understood as the Brazilian upstream component of a wider platform that links Brazil and Chile feedstock with U.S. separation, metals and alloys.
Aclara Resources is building a cross-border rare-earth platform
Aclara Resources is developing two advanced ionic-clay rare-earth deposits: the Carina Project in Brazil and the Penco Module in Chile. Its strategy extends beyond mine development into rare-earth separation in the United States and further downstream metals and alloys.
The company’s current CEO and Director is Ramón Barúa Costa. Aclara describes its business as a mine-to-alloy platform rather than a stand-alone mining company, which is important for understanding Carina: the project is designed to feed a downstream system controlled by the same corporate group.
Carina’s 2026 FS increased the reserve base
The April 2026 FS reports 170.8 Mt of Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves at an average 1,745 ppm TREO. The reserve consists of 22.2 Mt Proven at 1,856 ppm TREO and 148.6 Mt Probable at 1,728 ppm TREO.
The FS also reports 260.8 Mt of Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources at 1,610 ppm TREO, plus 41.3 Mt Inferred. Mineral Resources include the Mineral Reserves.
This updated reserve is important because older Carina disclosures used lower PFS values. For current project analysis, Econosur uses the April 2026 FS numbers rather than the earlier PFS reserve.
The FS defines a large project — and a large separation cost
Carina is designed as an 18-year operation processing an average of roughly 9.7 Mt of plant feed per year. Average annual production is modeled at 4,378 t REO in MREC, including 1,191 t NdPr, 156 t Dy and 27 t Tb.
The total construction-capital estimate of US$780.9 million consists of US$678.2 million of construction capex plus US$102.7 million contingency. This is approximately US$100.4 million higher than the PFS estimate, reflecting factors including foreign-exchange movements, inflation and greater engineering definition.
| FS metric | Carina 2026 FS |
|---|---|
| Mine life | 18 years |
| Total construction capex | US$780.9m |
| Post-tax NPV8 | US$1.661bn |
| Post-tax IRR | 26.9% |
| Post-tax payback | 2.9 years |
| Average annual EBITDA | ~US$461m |
| Average NSR | US$61.8/t processed |
| Production cost | US$13.1/t processed |
The separation charge is not a minor modeling detail.
The FS includes average annual separation costs of approximately US$314.4 million, equal to about 34% of gross revenue. The economic value of Project Dynamo itself is explicitly outside Carina’s NPV. That means the Brazilian mine economics and the U.S. downstream economics must be read separately.
Carina’s process eliminates several conventional mining steps
Carina is an ionic-clay deposit. Because the ore is near surface and friable, the FS does not require drilling and blasting, crushing, grinding or milling. Clay is mined mechanically and treated through Aclara’s patented Circular Mineral Harvesting process.
The flowsheet uses ammonium sulfate to desorb rare-earth elements from the clays and is designed around high levels of water and reagent recirculation. Aclara states that its wider process architecture can retain around 95% of process water and recirculate 99% of the main reagent, while avoiding a conventional tailings-storage facility.
Aclara operated a semi-industrial pilot plant in Aparecida de Goiânia in 2025. The facility was designed to process roughly 200 tonnes of clay and produce approximately 150 kg of rare-earth carbonate. Aclara’s current Carina page reports 97.7% MREC purity.
Carina’s Brazilian product is a high-purity mixed carbonate, not separated Dy, Tb or NdPr oxide. Separation is a second industrial stage and is central to Aclara’s U.S. strategy.
EIA received does not mean construction authorization is complete
Aclara submitted Carina’s Environmental Impact Assessment to Goiás environmental authority SEMAD in May 2025. The company’s current project page states “EIA – Received in June 2026.”
That wording should not be converted into a claim that all construction permits have been granted. Aclara’s own project page continues to host environmental-study material marked as preliminary and not yet approved by SEMAD. The Installation License therefore remains a subsequent permitting milestone.
The April FS schedule targeted detailed engineering and early works for Q3 2026, the Installation License for Q1 2027, full construction from Q1 2027, commissioning in H1 2028 and initial production in H2 2028. As of this page’s publication date, Econosur does not treat the Q3 early-works target as proof that work has already commenced unless separately confirmed.
Development funding is not the same as construction financing
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation committed up to US$5 million of project-development funding for the Carina FS and holds a preferential opportunity under certain conditions to participate in future project financing.
Aclara also completed a US$50 million private placement in 2026 involving investors including CAP and Hochschild interests. These funds strengthen the company’s balance sheet and development platform, but they should not be described as fully securing Carina’s US$780.9 million construction requirement.
Financing caveat: project-development funding, equity placements and strategic shareholders improve execution capacity, but they are not equivalent to a fully committed Carina construction-financing package.
Aclara is building local supplier capacity before full construction
Carina’s commercial preparation is already visible locally. During Q1 2026, Aclara completed the second round of its Supplier Development Program, benefiting 56 local suppliers. It also ran workforce training in Nova Roma and the surrounding region.
The company maintains a public supplier-registration channel in Brazil. The FS also uses a modular-construction strategy, allowing selected fabrication to occur away from the project site while site preparation advances in Goiás.
This creates a more nuanced supplier market than a simple local-versus-international split. Some packages may favor local civil works, logistics and site services; other packages can be engineered or fabricated outside Goiás and delivered as modules.
Project Dynamo changes how Carina should be valued strategically
Aclara plans to separate rare earths in the United States through Project Dynamo at the Port of Vinton in Louisiana. The facility is designed to transform MREC into individual magnet rare-earth oxides.
Crucially, Project Dynamo is not a Carina-only plant. Aclara’s corporate platform is designed around feedstock from its Brazilian and Chilean ionic-clay projects. This makes Louisiana a multi-feed downstream hub rather than a simple extension of one Brazilian mine.
| Project Dynamo output | Planned annual average |
|---|---|
| NdPr oxide | 1,131 t |
| Dy oxide | 148 t |
| Tb oxide | 25 t |
The standalone downstream study reports a post-tax NPV8 of about US$470 million, 25.2% IRR and 3.3-year payback. Those economics are separate from Carina’s mine NPV.
The planned U.S. site has also received approval under Louisiana’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program. This is property-tax relief, not a cash grant: the disclosed structure is an 80% ad-valorem property-tax exemption, estimated by Aclara at roughly US$4.2 million per year and US$20.8 million over the first five years, with potential extension.
Carina is upstream Brazil; Project Dynamo is downstream United States. Aclara’s strategy intentionally separates mining geography from high-value separation geography while combining feed from more than one South American source.
SPREC and AI are process upgrades — not finished commercial capacity
In June 2026, Aclara introduced Super Pure Rare Earth Carbonate (SPREC), a pilot-scale product with approximately 99% rare-earth purity. The technology is intended to improve the interface between mine-side concentration and downstream separation and can support processing of feed from both Brazil and Chile.
Aclara is also developing digital-twin and AI tools for separation. In July 2026, its U.S. subsidiary Aclara Technologies Inc. was selected under a U.S. Department of Energy program for the Phase I project “AI-Enabled Process Optimization for Multi-Feed Rare Earth Separation.”
The correct wording is selected for a project subject to award negotiations. The amount, final scope and timing are not equivalent to an already disbursed federal grant.
The VAC relationship points toward magnets, but it is not a 2026 offtake deal
Aclara’s relationship with VAC / Vacuumschmelze dates to a July 2024 memorandum focused on a potential ESG-oriented mine-to-magnet supply chain. In November 2025, the companies publicly strengthened the collaboration during a visit to Aclara’s Brazilian pilot plant.
The relationship is strategically relevant because Aclara’s downstream plan extends from oxide separation into metals and alloys. The current metals-and-alloys design includes approximately 154 t/y FeDy metal, 19 t/y Tb metal, 811 t/y NdPr metal and 2,681 t/y NdFeB alloy. The NdFeB plant has nominal capacity of 3,500 t/y, but modeled output is constrained by available NdPr feed.
What Carina means for equipment and service suppliers
The FS converts Carina from a geological story into a project with defined mining, processing, infrastructure and construction requirements. The opportunity is not limited to mine equipment because the project avoids several conventional hard-rock steps and relies heavily on materials handling, leaching, water management, reagent recycling, modular construction and project logistics.
Three business questions public disclosures do not fully answer
Which Carina packages move first once the remaining environmental and construction permits are secured, and which packages are already being defined through detailed engineering?
Which equipment, fabrication and construction scopes will be sourced in Goiás or elsewhere in Brazil, and which are likely to be modularized or sourced internationally?
How much value remains in Brazil when Carina’s mine-side product is designed to enter a U.S.-centered separation, metals and alloys platform?
Project-level research around Carina and Aclara’s rare-earth chain
Econosur can investigate commercial questions that feasibility studies, corporate presentations and public project pages do not resolve.
Project economics, production targets, permitting schedules and downstream plans are forward-looking. This page distinguishes the April 2026 Carina FS from earlier PFS assumptions and separates Carina mine economics from Project Dynamo downstream economics.
- Aclara Resources, April 2026 — Carina Feasibility Study.
- Aclara Resources — current Carina project page.
- Aclara Resources — Project Dynamo and vertical-integration economics.
- Aclara Resources — Project Dynamo oxide output and metals-and-alloys production design.
- Aclara Resources — Circular Mineral Harvesting process design.
- Aclara Resources, 26 June 2026 — Louisiana ITEP property-tax exemption approval.
- Aclara Resources, 23 July 2026 — DOE selection for AI-enabled multi-feed rare-earth separation.
- Aclara Resources, 7 November 2025 — Aclara and VAC strengthen mine-to-magnet collaboration.
- Aclara Resources, Q1 2026 MD&A — supplier-development program benefiting 56 local suppliers.
- Aclara Resources — digital-twin and AI strategy.
- Aclara Resources — current leadership.
FAQ
What stage is the Carina Rare Earths Project at?
Aclara filed the Carina Feasibility Study in April 2026. Its current project page states that the EIA was received in June 2026. Further permitting and construction authorization remain separate project milestones.
How large is Carina’s reserve?
The 2026 FS reports 170.8 Mt of Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves at 1,745 ppm TREO.
What does Carina plan to produce?
The FS models average annual production of 4,378 tonnes of rare-earth oxides in MREC, including 1,191 tonnes NdPr, 156 tonnes Dy and 27 tonnes Tb.
Why is Project Dynamo separate from Carina’s NPV?
Carina’s FS treats downstream separation as a cost to the mine project. The economic value of Aclara’s U.S. separation business is modeled separately.
Is Project Dynamo only for Carina?
No. Aclara’s platform is designed to process high-purity MREC from its ionic-clay projects in Brazil and Chile.
Did Louisiana give Aclara a US$20 million cash grant?
No. The support is an Industrial Tax Exemption Program property-tax relief arrangement.
Has the U.S. Department of Energy already paid Aclara for its AI separation project?
Aclara Technologies was selected in July 2026 for an AI-enabled multi-feed rare-earth separation project. Final award amount, terms and timing remain subject to negotiations.
