Sovereign Rare Earths
sovereign_rare_earths

Sovereign

A fractured ore specimen, photographed in black and white

rare earths from Africa’s artisanal mines, traced from pit to port

for the United States. Only.

© Sovereign Rare
Earths LLC

PitTrusted ProvenancePort
About

A second road for critical minerals — from Africa’s small-scale miners to American industry.

Rare earth supply is concentrated in a handful of processing jurisdictions. Much of the ore that could diversify it is dug by hand, in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) communities that sit outside formal supply chains.

Sovereign Rare Earths LLC formalises that production. We work with miners and cooperatives on the ground, document every lot from the moment it leaves the pit, and deliver it exclusively to buyers in the United States.

Maniema, DRC Dar es Salaam Mombasa U.S. processors UNITED STATES AFRICA
Pit to port to processor · Maniema → Dar es Salaam or Mombasa → United States
Focus
ASM critical minerals supply chains
Feedstock
Monazite · Coltan · Wolframite · Cassiterite
Provenance
Trusted Provenance on a private blockchain, with Minespider
Offtake
United States, exclusively
Stakes

The tonnes already exist. Today they move on someone else’s terms.

The DRC mines over half the world’s tantalum and material shares of its tin, tungsten and rare earth feedstock — mostly by artisanal miners in the east. The United States sources almost none of it at origin, because no channel meets Western compliance and banking standards.

That gap is not neutral. It hands the volume to Chinese processors on preferential terms and lets them set the price. Formalising the artisanal share does not create new supply; it moves existing supply onto a footing where Western buyers can compete for it.

Supply concentration & U.S. exposureUSGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026
MineralWhere the tonnes come fromU.S. exposureWhere the ASM share goes today
TantalumDRC 1,300 t of 2,500 t world (2025e) — 52%. DRC and Rwanda together 68%. Nearly all artisanal.Net import reliance 100%. China supplies 47% of U.S. metal and powder.Mined in the DRC, converted in China, bought back by the U.S. as Chinese metal.
TungstenChina 67,000 t of 85,000 t — 79%.Net import reliance over 50%; China 26% of imports. China imposed export controls on tungsten items in February 2025.DRC wolframite is priced and sold into China by default.
Rare earthsChina 270,000 t of 390,000 t REO mine output — 69% — and most of the world’s separation.Net import reliance 67%; China 71% of imports. Export controls tightened in April and October 2025.All recorded DRC monazite exports to date went to China.

Percentages calculated from USGS tonnages. Every mineral we handle is on the 2025 U.S. critical minerals list.

Where it ends up

Capacitors, penetrators, magnets, guidance systems, airframes and semiconductors.

Why the channel is missing

Buyers need OECD evidence and radiation-safety records; their banks need KYC on every party paid. Artisanal sites can produce neither.

What we change

A verified mineral and financial chain of custody, so Western buyers and their banks can touch material that today only rivals can.

Impact

Formalisation is the product. The miner is the first customer.

A traceable kilogram starts with a miner who has a licence, a fair price and a safe place to work. Without that, no ledger entry means anything.

We build formal trade from the pit up: registering miners and cooperatives, paying against independent assay, and investing in the safety practices rare earth ore demands.

For the minerInformal tradeWith SRE

Legal status

Unlicensed, exposed to seizureRegistered with the mining authority, organised in cooperatives

Price

Set by whoever is buying that dayPaid against independent assay, with the grade on record

Payment

Cash, undocumentedTraceable payment, logged to the lot on the ledger

Safety

No equipment, no trainingPPE, site training, and radiation-aware handling for thorium-bearing monazite

Labour

UnmonitoredZero tolerance for child and forced labour, checked on site

Market

Opaque middlemenA direct, long-term route to U.S. buyers
Standard

Aligned to the OECD five-step framework, from the first shovel.

Our due diligence follows the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas — the reference standard for U.S. and allied buyers. Each step is built into operations, not bolted on at export.

  1. Management systems

    A written supply chain policy, a named compliance lead, and a lot-level record for every kilogram we handle.

  2. Identify and assess risk

    Site mapping, miner and cooperative registration, and on-the-ground checks for conflict financing, child labour and unsafe practice.

  3. Respond to risk

    Mitigation plans with measurable targets. Where risk cannot be mitigated, we suspend or disengage.

  4. Independent audit

    Third-party audit of our due diligence practices, with auditor read access to the full ledger.

  5. Report publicly

    Annual reporting on our supply chain due diligence, so buyers and regulators can see what we see.

Trust Layer

Trusted provenance. Every kilogram, on the record.

We run a private, permissioned blockchain for mineral transparency with our partner Minespider. Each custody event — extraction, weighing, sealing, assay, export — is written once and cannot be altered, and each lot carries a digital product passport.

Provenance alone does not move money. Our supply chain and oversight partners — the traceability platform, independent assayers, third-party auditors and financial-integrity specialists — work around the same record, so what a buyer can see, a bank can bank. Together they form a layer of trust that is documented, independently checked and repeatable lot after lot.

Permissioned

Only verified participants write to the chain. Every entry is signed by a known party.

Immutable

Records are append-only. A correction is a new entry, never an erasure.

Shared on need

Access is granted per lot, so commercial data stays private while provenance stays provable.

Built with Minespider

Our traceability partner. Its platform issues digital product passports and maps supply chains for miners, traders and manufacturers, with controlled data sharing at every step.

What the trust layer delivers

Banks & trade financiers
KYC, sanctions and beneficial-ownership checks on every party paid, tied to the lot they are financing.
Capital partners
Auditable volumes, prices and margins — risk they can price rather than guess at.
Refiners & processors
Verified origin, independent assay and OECD-aligned due diligence evidence with every delivery.
Governments
Export records, royalty visibility and a corridor that can be regulated rather than policed after the fact.
End users & manufacturers
A documented path from pit to product for their own supply chain reporting.
Lot SRE-0417 · Monazite concentrateIllustrative record
EventCustodianMass (kg)Block hashStatus
Extraction loggedRegistered ASM site1,240.00x7f3a…c21eSigned
Cooperative weigh-inMiners’ cooperative1,238.60x19bd…04a7Signed
Aggregated & sealedSRE buying centre1,212.50xa04c…9e3fSigned
Assay certifiedIndependent laboratory1,212.50x5e82…b610Signed
Export clearedMining authority & customs1,212.50xd3f1…77c8Signed
DeliveredU.S. processor1,212.50x2c6e…a95dSigned

Sample entries show the shape of a custody record; they are not live data.

Minerals

The ore behind the magnets, the capacitors and the alloys.

We move five minerals dug by the same cooperatives: monazite and bastnäsite for the rare earths, coltan for tantalum and niobium, wolframite for tungsten, and cassiterite for tin. Tin, tantalum and tungsten travel bag-and-tagged and interoperable with ITSCI; monazite travels with radiation-safety records.

Rare earths · Phosphate

Monazite

(Ce,La,Nd,Th)PO₄

Placer sands and pegmatites, recovered by hand alongside other heavy minerals. Thorium-bearing, so it moves under radiation-safe handling.

Rare earths · Carbonate-fluoride

Bastnäsite

(Ce,La)CO₃F

The principal ore of the light rare earths, and a key source of neodymium and praseodymium.

Tantalum & niobium · Oxide

Coltan

(Fe,Mn)(Ta,Nb)₂O₆

Tantalite–columbite, the feedstock behind capacitors and superalloys. Over half the world’s tantalum is mined in the DRC, nearly all of it artisanally.

Tungsten · Oxide

Wolframite

(Fe,Mn)WO₄

Tungsten for cutting tools, penetrators and airframes — a metal China placed under export control in 2025.

Tin · Oxide

Cassiterite

SnO₂

The world’s main tin ore, and the solder in every circuit board. Mined by the same cooperatives, tagged under the same chain of custody.

Lanthanides · 57–71Magnet-critical
57La
58Ce
59Pr
60Nd
61Pm
62Sm
63Eu
64Gd
65Tb
66Dy
67Ho
68Er
69Tm
70Yb
71Lu
Alignment

Built to the frameworks U.S. and allied buyers already trust.

Our systems are designed against the international standards that govern responsible mineral sourcing, artisanal mining, labour rights and the handling of naturally radioactive ore.

OECD

Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Mineral Supply Chains

Our five-step risk framework, including Annex II red flags.

ARM · RESOLVE

CRAFT Code

A progressive pathway for artisanal producers to meet market requirements.

United Nations

Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Human rights due diligence across our operations and partners.

ILO

Conventions 138 & 182

Minimum age and the elimination of the worst forms of child labour.

IAEA

Safety standards for NORM

Handling, storage and transport of naturally radioactive material such as monazite.

United States

Critical minerals priorities

Rare earth elements are on the U.S. critical minerals list. Our offtake serves that need.

Alignment describes how our systems are designed. It is not a claim of certification or endorsement by these bodies.

Miners’ cooperativesNational mining authoritiesIndependent assay laboratoriesMinespiderThird-party auditorsU.S. processors & manufacturersDevelopment finance
Leadership

Jason S. Clarke

Co-Founder & Chairman

Jason built the first company to mine and export conflict-free artisanal gold from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He brings that playbook — formalise the miners, document every step, sell only to buyers who demand proof — to rare earths.

He is also Founder and CEO of Maison Clarke, a precious metals and mining group operating across Guyana, Suriname, Liberia and the DRC.

  • OECDPresenter, 2024 Responsible Mineral Supply Chains Forum
  • EducationMA International Affairs, The Fletcher School · BA Law & Society, Penn State
  • Civil societyCo-founder, Seek The Peace (2008)
  • BaseDallas, Texas

Iddi Mulengwa

Co-Founder & Chief Operations Officer

Iddi has more than 15 years running operations in East and Central Africa. He is an expert in critical minerals, precious metals and rare earths, and in the extreme logistics that secure supply chains across the continent demand.

He was Managing Director of CJX Congo, working in the DRC’s tin, tantalum and tungsten trade.

  • PreviouslyManaging Director, CJX Congo
  • EducationMA International Politics · BA Linguistics, Newcastle University
  • LanguagesEnglish, French

Tim Shortley

Chief Government Affairs Officer

Tim has held senior positions at the African Development Bank, the White House National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, USAID and the UN World Food Programme, working across more than 50 countries.

As the State Department’s Senior Adviser for Conflict Resolution he led U.S. peace interventions in the Great Lakes, including the 2007 Nairobi Communiqué and the Goma cessation of hostilities between the DRC and 24 armed groups. He later directed the Sudan Office as Deputy U.S. Special Envoy.

  • NowInterim Coordinator, Financing Agri-SME Trust Fund, African Development Bank
  • White HouseDirector for African Affairs, National Security Council
  • HonoursState Department Meritorious Award · USAID Superior Honor Award
  • EducationMA International Relations, Salve Regina · Naval War College, College of Naval Command & Staff

John Kirschke

Chief Security Officer

John served 31 years in the U.S. Navy, 30 of them as a Navy SEAL, rising from the enlisted ranks to Commander. He led operations, logistics and training across Naval Special Warfare, with deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.

Since 2020 he has advised on business development and security risk across Africa, making sure field projects have security and local cooperation in place before work begins.

  • ServiceCommander, U.S. Navy SEAL (Ret.)
  • CommandOperations Officer, Naval Special Warfare Center · Executive Officer, NSW Logistics Support Command ONE
  • HonoursBronze Star
  • EducationBS Criminal Justice, National University
Contact

Critical minerals are national security. Talk to us about supply.

  • OfftakeU.S. processors & manufacturers
  • GovernmentAgencies & development finance
  • CapitalInvestors & strategic partners
  • FieldCooperatives & mining authorities
Office

Washington, D.C.

United States
Office

London

United Kingdom
Office

DRC

Democratic Republic of the Congo