1. NATURE OF OPERATIONS Rare Element Resources Ltd. (“we,” “us,” “Rare Element” or the “Company”) was incorporated under the laws of the Province of British Columbia, Canada, on June 3, 1999. Rare Element holds a 100% interest in the Bear Lodge rare earth elements project (the “Bear Lodge REE Project”) located near the town of Sundance in northeast Wyoming. The Bear Lodge REE Project consists of several large, disseminated rare earth elements (“REE”) deposits that comprise one of the highest-grade REE deposits identified in North America. In addition to neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), the Bear Lodge REE Project has a favorable distribution of a number of other critical rare earth elements. The Company also holds a 100% interest in the Sundance Gold Project that is adjacent to the Bear Lodge REE Project and contains a historical inferred mineral resource primarily composed of three gold targets within the area of the Bear Lodge property. Given the Company’s longstanding focus on the Bear Lodge REE Project and the current interest in REEs, the advancement of the Sundance Gold Project has been on hold since 2011 and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. The Company is currently focused on the advancement of a rare earth processing and separation demonstration-scale plant (the “Demonstration Plant”) project. In January 2021, a consortium of companies, of which the Company is a part, received notice from the Department of Energy (“DoE”) that the consortium had been selected for negotiation of a potential financial award for the engineering, construction and operation of a rare earth separation and processing Demonstration Plant. The consortium of companies is led by General Atomics, an affiliate of Synchron, the Company’s majority shareholder, and includes certain of General Atomics’ affiliates, and LNV, an Ardurra Group, Inc. company, as engineering and construction subcontractor. A formal proposal was submitted by the consortium in response to a published Funding Opportunity Announcement in mid-2020 for the construction and operation of a rare earth separation and processing demonstration plant utilizing proprietary technology to produce commercial-grade products. The DoE finalized the award, and an agreement was executed by the DoE’s grants/agreement officer on September 27, 2021, with an effective date of October 1, 2021. The Company, as a subrecipient of the award, along with the other consortium members, commenced work on the planning and design of the Demonstration Plant project in November 2021, with the Company’s contractual arrangement with General Atomics finalized in December 2021. The DoE funding is in the amount of $21,900 and represents approximately one-half of the originally estimated costs for the Demonstration Plant. The Demonstration Plant will process already stockpiled high-grade sample materials from the Bear Lodge REE Project. To address the Company’s funding needs, the Company completed rights offerings in December 2021 (the “2021 Rights Offering”) and March 2024 (the “2024 Rights Offering,” and together with the 2021 Rights Offering, the “Rights Offerings”) for gross proceeds of approximately $25,400 and $35,800, respectively. The previously noted $21,900 financial award from the DoE was expected to fund approximately one-half of the originally expected total cost of the Demonstration Plant project, with the balance of the required funding being provided by the Company utilizing the proceeds from the 2021 Rights Offering, the $4,400 grant from the Wyoming Energy Authority (the “WEA”) as discussed in Note 5, and other funding sources, as necessary. Due to inflationary pressures, the initial Demonstration Plant project cost estimate of $43,800 has increased, resulting in the need for the 2024 Rights Offering, which closed in March 2024, to fund in part the Demonstration Plant operations and in part to progress the Company’s business strategy to support commercialization of our proprietary technology and fund activities to support the advancement of the Bear Lodge REE Project, which includes funding the operation of the Demonstration Plant for a period of time that is expected to be sufficient to provide the information to support a commercialization decision, acquiring real property, updating the mineral resource model and technical reports, and advancing permitting, environmental support, and basic engineering, as well as for other general corporate purposes. Ultimately, in the event the Company cannot secure additional financial resources, or complete a strategic transaction in the longer term, the Company may need to curtail or suspend the development and commercialization of its Bear Lodge REE Project or other initiatives, or potentially liquidate its business interests, and investors may lose all or part of their investment. During the three months ended March 31, 2024, the Company continued its work on the Demonstration Plant project. This work is planned to continue until the Demonstration Plant’s expected completion in 2025. In December 2022, the Demonstration Plant achieved its final engineering design milestone, marking the completion of the DoE’s first go/no-go decision point. A second go/no-go gating milestone was achieved in December 2023 with the issuance by the DoE of a Project Continuation Notice, allowing for the construction of the Demonstration Plant. The completion of each of these milestones were gating events for the DoE’s continued funding, as provided for in the 2021 award. With the completion of the second gating event, the Demonstration Plant’s construction is currently underway and is expected to be completed in mid-2024. Operations to process the sample materials and recover the NdPr and other REEs are expected to follow the completion of the Demonstration Plant’s construction for an additional approximately 12- to 15- month period. The Company has incurred losses since its inception, and further losses are anticipated in the development of its business. As of March 31, 2024, the Company had cash and cash equivalents of $38,133. During the three months ended March 31, 2024, we consumed cash of $2,784 in our operating activities ($784 when netted against the $2,000 received from the WEA during the quarter), of which approximately $2,000 was advanced for the payment of costs associated with the Demonstration Plant project, while the remainder was used for the payment of the Company’s general and administrative expenses and other ongoing costs of sustaining its properties.
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