TRONA — A new company is expected to take over mining operations here early next month.
The sale of Searles Valley Minerals, announced last week and approved by the court on Monday, is expected to close on or before Oct. 2.
In an interview Tuesday, the CEO of 5E Advanced Materials, Inc. said the deal will transform 5E’s status from operating a development-stage project to operating a producing one within about two weeks.
Paul Weibel of 5E, speaking to Dmitry Silverstein, managing director of Water Tower Research during a virtual online conference, talked about the planned acquisition and said his company is excited about the opportunities in Trona.
Minerals with industrial importance have been mined at Searles Lake since the late 1800s. Trona, named for one of the important minerals found there, was established as a company town in 1913. According to historical information published online by San Bernardino County, Searles Lake is known to contain samples of at least half of the planet’s natural elements. Other important minerals and key industrial compounds produced at Trona through the years include the minerals borax, halite, and hanksite, along with potash, sodium sulfate, and boric acid, which are recovered from the lake’s brine.
Searles Valley Minerals operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Karnavati Holdings, Inc., which is owned by Nirma Limited, a major Indian industrial conglomerate. Nirma purchased Searles from a private investment firm around November 2007.
Searles filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 15, about four months after announcing a reduction of about 55% of its Trona workforce. Many of its employees live across the Kern County line in Ridgecrest. Also in bankruptcy and part of the deal are two affiliated companies, Trona Railway Company LLC and Searles Domestic Water Company LLC.
How the sale took place
Bankruptcy court filings initially called for auctioning what were described as SVM’s “going concern” assets. But a document filed with the court on Sept. 15 included a declaration from Christian Tempke, a senior banker at Lazard, the Wall Street investment bank that SVM hired to run the sale process for its bankruptcy, explaining why no auction took place.
In the document, Tempke said SVM, with his firm’s assistance, began a strategic marketing process to gauge interest in the Trona business beginning in August 2025. By April 2026, Tempke said, it was clear that “an out-of-court transaction was not viable due in part to the debtors’ legacy liabilities and the lack of appetite from potential buyers to acquire the debtors’ business outside of a court-supervised process.”
Although Lazard engaged with more than 125 parties, with over 55 of them executing non-disclosure agreements, Tempke said, only six indications of interest were received by a July 10 deadline. Eventually the field of potential buyers had narrowed to two and each of their acquisition proposals included financing support from the debtors’ ultimate parent company, Nirma Limited.
Negotiations continued, Tempke said, with both of the potential buyers conditioning their offers on being selected as the successful bidder without a subsequent auction.
The bid from 5E was accepted, he said, because the sponsor (Nirma) “currently does not support financing the going-concern bid of the second bidder at current terms.”
Tempke added that “the successful bidder has committed to offering employment to the vast majority of existing employees.”
‘We fell in love’
In his interview with Water Tower Research on Tuesday, Weibel described the operation at Trona.
“We visited, and we fell in love,” he said. In follow-up comments Wednesday afternoon, he said, “This is true. We really like what we are about to buy.”
Currently, he said, 5 Mol Borax (VBOR), sodium sulfate and salt are being produced at Trona.
“We could produce boric acid, anhydrous borax, sodium bicarbonate, SOP and soda ash,” he added. “Though soda ash would require a material change in market conditions which is not expected in the short and medium term.”
Speaking to the workforce, Weibel said “the majority of the Trona workforce will be extended offers of employment.” Bankruptcy documents filed by Searles showed 279 employees when the initial filing was made in June and 275 employees at the end of July.
“The agreement mandated we extend offers five days before closing, and closing is targeted for early October,” Weibel said. “Unfortunately, the bankruptcy process does not provide an abundance of time and requires a quick turnaround. As such we are working quickly to ensure a smooth transition and extend the offers.”
5E Advanced Materials, headquartered in Hesperia, describes itself as a “critical minerals company.” According to its website, the company’s Fort Cady Project, located near Newberry Springs, is “the largest known new conventional boron deposit outside of Turkey, fully permitted, in production, and designated U.S. Critical Infrastructure.” Newberry Springs is about 60 miles northeast of Hesperia and 115 miles southeast of Trona. All three communities are in San Bernardino County.
Weibel said 5E is already dealing with the same regulators that govern operations in Trona.
“California is a very unique, complex state,” he said. “We have operating experience. We understand the state. We understand the regulators. The same bodies: EPA, San Bernardino County, the Lahontan Water District, the Mojave Air District, the EPA Region Nine out of San Francisco — all of our regulators are their regulators, so we understood this asset.”
And, he said, “we understand the asset and solution mining.”
The solution mining at Trona — pulling minerals out of the briny lake water — is different from ISL, the process that 5E uses at Fort Cady. There the company extracts minerals by dissolving them underground rather than digging them out physically.
But the importance of a major asset at Trona — boron — was made clear in November 2025 when the U.S. Geological Survey added boron and nine other new minerals to the official list of critical minerals.
Andrea Travnicek, assistant secretary of the interior for water and science, said in a news release that the list “includes the minerals needed to protect the nation’s food and energy supplies as well as defense and the economy as a whole.”
The deal
As described in news releases and a document filed with the court, 5E will acquire Searles Valley Minerals’ production facilities (Westend and Argus plants), approximately 9,000 acres of Searles Lake brine resources, the Trona Railway short-line railroad, potable water production and distribution facilities, permits, licenses, and related operating assets located in San Bernardino, Kern, and Inyo counties.
The company will put up $3,357,906 in cash and 8,300,000 shares of its common stock and take on a $6.22 million senior unsecured note. 5E has secured $10 million in bridge financing from Nirma Limited (or its designated subsidiary) to fund the acquisition and provide working capital.
The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including, with respect to the Trona Railway railroad assets, required authorization from the Surface Transportation Board.
The sale order approved by the court also incorporates an agreement with the California Air Resources Board that calls for the debtors (Searles) to exchange approximately 16,048 carbon credits to satisfy postpetition emissions obligations under the cap-and-invest program. The state agency agreed not to pursue an appeal and to withdraw its stay pending appeal request. Additionally, CARB will not file a proof of claim, thereby significantly reducing the overall unsecured claims pool in these cases.
What’s next
A hearing previously set for Sept. 24 was canceled. Court documents show that Oct. 2 is the deadline for the sale to 5E to close, Oct. 21 is the deadline for general creditors to file claims and Dec. 14 is the deadline for government agencies to file claims. A combined disclosure statement and Chapter 11 plan of liquidation is due to be filed by Sept. 28, spelling out how creditors will ultimately be paid. The plan must be confirmed in court by Nov. 18 with an effective date of Nov. 23.
A dispute over a $3.18 million mechanics lien claimed by Process Equipment Inc. remains unresolved; the debtors are asking the court to limit it to no more than $250,300.
A separate intercompany claim of $83.6 million from Trona Railway Company LLC, one of the three debtor entities, against Searles Valley Minerals Inc. also remains outstanding.
Case information is online at cases.stretto.com/SVM.
Claudia Elliott is founder and editor of The Mojave Beat She can be reached by email: claudia@mojavebeat.news.