Critical minerals have overtaken news cycles all year, with U.S.tariffs and Chinese export curbs disrupting supply chains and driving new waves of investment.As recently as last week, at the G20 meeting in South Africa, the world’s leading economies continued ongoing negotiations surrounding attempts to construct a comprehensive international agreement that would ensure global industry has ready access to indispensable raw materials like rare earths, cobalt, and titanium.
In the meantime, the U.S.is persisting in enacting its own plans to secure its critical minerals supply chains, and additive manufacturing (AM) is poised to play no small role in such efforts: 6K Additive, for instance, just landed a $27.4 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM).As part of the normal processing timeline involved with EXIM loans, 6K Additive’s funding is subject to final satisfaction of certain terms that the company expects will be met within 90 days.
The funding is part of the EXIM’s Make More in America Initiative, established in April 2022 to support “export-oriented domestic manufacturing projects.” EXIM made a $23.5 million loan to the U.S.subsidiary of Australia’s Amaero International Limited, another critical minerals supplier in the AM space, at the beginning of the year.With the $27.4 million loan, 6K Additive expects to increase its annual production capacity at its Burgettstown, Pennsylvania operations from 200 metric tons to 1,000 metric tons, while also creating 50 new jobs.
Two years ago, the Department of War (DoW) awarded 6K Additive $23.4 million in a Defense Production Act Investment (DPAI) grant, also supporting the company’s goal of full production capacity by the end of 2026.6K Additive’s focus on refractory metals, in addition to nickel and titanium alloys, should help the company gain traction with the defense sector, especially the rapidly expanding market for hypersonic applications.In a press release about EXIM’s $27.4 million loan to 6K Additive, Frank Roberts, the company’s CEO, said, “We are experiencing growth in demand for our refractory, titanium and nickel powders for additive manufacturing, and the EXIM financing supports scaling to meet this growth by expanding our state-of-the-art powder and alloy footprints.
We also intend to expand our product offerings with ingot production for forging and castings.Key to our success is our talented employee team.The EXIM loan supports hiring the very best engineers, operators and support staff to significantly grow the organization to meet anticipated market demand over the next 3-5 years.” The chairman of EXIM, John Jovanovic, said, “This expansion is proof that American manufacturing is innovating and growing.
My first Board action is about rebuilding America’s industrial base, securing critical supply chains, and making sure America leads in the industries of the future.Partnering with the Department of War on this effort underscores EXIM’s role as an economic tool to effectuate President Trump’s agenda for revitalizing our domestic manufacturing and bringing supply chain security to America.” I think that the companies comprising the metal AM industry in the U.S.and Europe would do well to position themselves as sellers of an enabling technology for rebuilding Western critical minerals supply chains.
This is already happening in bits and pieces, but the best opportunity for success would be in the form of a collaborative effort across the whole industry, involving OEMs, metal suppliers, and government agencies.The potential for international collaboration is one of the most promising angles to that idea.As I discussed in an interview with Artem Yarovinsky and Matthew Murray from Velta Holdings, a titanium producer in the U.S.
and Ukraine, AM has solidified its role as a central piece in critical mineral reshoring strategies across the globe.Velta’s prospects for U.S.International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) funding make it a good candidate for pursuing intra-industry partnerships as well.
It also seems likely that, as the use of AM in areas like hypersonic continues to accelerate, the DoW could try to push AM users it funds, like Ursa Major, to work with powder suppliers it also funds, like 6K.That would provide further incentive for all the companies working in this space to choose collaboration over competition.Above all, though, it’s the fact that U.S.
domestic critical minerals supply chains have shrunken so drastically that provides the impetus for companies to prioritize partnerships.At this point, there’s room for everybody who can actually deliver homegrown processing capacity of critical metals.Images courtesy of 6K Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.
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