Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for Serra Verde Pesquisa e Miner (DFC-SERRAVERDE)

Regions
  • Latin America and Caribbean
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Brazil
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Specific Location
Minaçu, State of Goiás
Whenever identified, the area within countries where the impacts of the investment may be experienced. Exact locations of projects may not be identified fully or at all in project documents. Please review updated project documents and community-led assessments.
Financial Institutions
  • US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Proposed
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
A
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Borrower
Serra Verde Pesquisa e Mineração Ltda.
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Energy
  • Mining
  • Technical Cooperation
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Advisory Services
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
Not Disclosed
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ DFC website

Updated in EWS Jun 23, 2025


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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

As stated by the DFC, the Serra Verde Rare Earths Project (the “Project”) consists of mining and concentrating Rare Earth Element ions adsorbed in clays. The Project is an existing mine located in the Pela Ema deposit located in the municipality of Minaçu in the northern region of the state of Goiás, Brazil. The Project includes the following components: open pit, operational plant, drained tailings piles (retained from screening and filtering), water main, power distribution line, and administrative support facilities (changing room, outpatient clinic, restaurant, R&D area, vehicle workshop, waste shed, fuel station, oily effluent treatment plant, among others). Proceeds of the DFC loan will be used to fund debottlenecking and optimization of the Project's extraction process.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are generally extracted from either hard rock or ionic clay deposits, such as Serra Verde’s. The Serra Verde mine in Minaçu, Brazil, is a key producer of rare earth elements (REEs), crucial for various high-tech and clean energy applications. Specifically, the mine focuses on neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium, which are vital components in high-efficiency permanent magnets used in electric vehicle (EV) motors and wind turbine generatorsThe mine is the first significant source of heavy rare earth elements outside of Asia, and aims to reduce reliance on China for these critical materials. 

Serra Verde is one of the largest ionic clay deposits outside of Asia with important competitive and environmental advantages due to the nature of the deposit, relatively low environmental impacts and its location in an established mining area, close to renewable energy infrastructure.

Construction is underway of phase I of the Pela Ema deposit, which is expected to produce at least 5,000t/y of rare earth oxide with a 25-year mine life.

 

 

People Affected By This Project
People Affected By This Project refers to the communities of people likely to be affected positively or negatively by a project.

The Project is screened as Category A because it involves an existing large-scale open pit mine.

The Project’s area of influence encompasses the direct area to be mined and the surrounding areas in the municipalities of Minaçu, Montividiu do Norte, and Trombas which together have a population of approximately 38,000 people. Approximately 81% of the population of these three municipalities live in the town of Minaçu . The Direct Area of Influence includes the village of Patrimonio Vicente and Minaçu, although there are no households within the Project site itself. Patrimonio Vicente is the community closest to the Project and is a village of approximately 310 people located approximately 18 km from the gates of the mine, near the access road to the site. Project staff primarily live in Minaçu, and are transported to the mine site via busses that pick them up at stops around the city on set times and following set routes. The Project has identified the entire state of Goias as the Indirect Area of Influence for social impacts, although engagement activities are generally focused on the three project municipalities, and two communities mentioned above.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.
Private Actor Relationship
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

Serra Verde Group has secured $150m (1.11bn reais) in investment from Denham Capital and the Energy and Minerals Group from the US and Vision Blue Resources. (Source: https://www.mining-technology.com/news/serra-verde-secures-investment/)

Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

Founded and backed by leading natural resources investors, Serra Verde is engaged in the production and sale of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) from its world class and wholly owned Pela Ema deposit in Brazil. Serra Verde is the only large scale producer outside Asia of all four critical magnetic REEs used in the manufacture of permanent magnets for the energy, automotive and electronics sectors. In addition, we provide a secure supply of REEs for defence, aerospace, nuclear and other critical industries. (https://www.linkedin.com/company/serra-verde-group/about/)

Mineração Serra Verde, also known as Serra Verde Mineração, is the operating company that owns and manages this deposit. The company aims to be a leading, sustainable, and reliable supplier of REEs for various industries, including defense, aerospace, and clean energy. As stated on the company's website, Serra Verde Pesquisa e Mineração Ltda. operates an integrated rare earth mining and processing operation in Minaçu County, State of Goiás, central Brazil. The high value rare earth elements (REEs) which Serra Verde supplies are critical to key technologies that will deliver the green energy transition, such as EVs and wind turbines.

Serra Verde has also earned a place on the Minerals Security Partnership’s (MSP) global list of projects considered to play key role in the global energy transition.

Private Actor 1 Private Actor 1 Role Private Actor 1 Sector Relation Private Actor 2 Private Actor 2 Role Private Actor 2 Sector
Serra Verde Group Parent Company Mining owns Serra Verde Pesquisa e Mineração Ltda. Client Mining

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

Client - Serra Verde Pesquisa e Mineração Ltda.:

Address: Rua Pierre Julien Sabatier, Quadra 1, Lote 1. S/N, Condomínio Vila Sama, Minaçu, Goiás, Brazil
Website: https://svpm.com.br/br/home-br/
Phone: +55 (62) 3379-3339

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Unlike many other development finance institutions, DFC does not currently have an access to information policy.

Under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DFC is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Agency records. However, DFC may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information and may charge fees in responding to requests. DFC has a designated FOIA officer who is trained in how to respond to requests and implement the law. You can learn more about filing a FOIA request at: https://www.dfc.gov/foia

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION (DFC)

The Office of Accountability is an independent office that addresses complaints about environmental or social issues related to DFC-supported projects. The office provides communities an opportunity to have concerns independently reviewed and addressed. If you submit a complaint to the Office of Accountability, it may assist you by either seeking to address your problems by facilitating a problem solving dialogue between you and those implementing the project and/or investigating whether the DFC complied with its policies to prevent environmental, social, human rights, and labor harms.

You can find more information about the Office of Accountability at: https://www.dfc.gov/who-we-are/office-accountability

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