US, Europe RE supply chain emerges from EF, Neo deal

US uranium producer Energy Fuels will sell mixed rare earth (RE) carbonate cracked from US monazite to Canada's Neo Performance Materials, which will separate it into rare earth oxides at its plant in Estonia, creating the beginnings of the first US-Europe rare earth supply chain in decades.

Monazite contains all the light and heavy rare earths needed for high-performance neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnets, which will be critical to the transition to electric vehicles as well as many electronics and industrial applications. A byproduct of mining mineral sands for titanium and zirconium, monazite is relatively abundant, but there are development barriers. Significant quantities of uranium and thorium must be separated and removed to access the rare earths in early-stage processing known as cracking. The high cost and regulatory burden associated with this left many monazite operations around the world unviable. Today the only country that processes monazite for rare earths is China, which is importing increasing amounts.

The processing of monazite within existing infrastructure for handling radioactive materials offers a compelling solution.

"Energy Fuels provides the missing link in solving this challenge," said Constantine Karayannopoulos, chief executive of Neo Performance Materials which owns and operates the Silmet light rare earth separation plant in Estonia. "They extract valuable uranium from monazite and put it to good use while also recovering the monazite's rare earth content."

Short timeline

The development timeline for the project has been short. Two years ago Colorado-based EF began to explore using its existing uranium production capacity at the White Mesa mill in Utah to crack monazite, add the extracted uranium to its production stream, store the thorium and produce a mixed rare earth carbonate that can be sold for processing into oxides.

Early last year after initial testing, EF cracked monazite on a pilot scale at Mesa. It started collaborating with Neo in April and in October produced commercial pilot quantities of a mixed rare earth carbonate that was successfully trialled at Neo's Silmet plant. Then in December EF signed a three-year supply contract with US mining and chemical company Chemours' Offerman plant for at least 2,500 t/yr of monazite sands mined in Georgia and the southeastern US.

Under the terms of a non-binding agreement signed today, EF will process monazite concentrates supplied by Chemours at White Mesa starting in March to April. Upon completion of the commercial-scale pilot programme at White Mesa, likely during the second or third quarter of this year, Neo will purchase and process a minimum of 840 t/yr of contained total rare earth oxide for sale to its customers.

"Energy Fuels is proud to help solve this challenge for both US and European markets," EF chief executive Mark Chalmers said.

Silmet is operating at 75pc of capacity because its Russian suppliers, which have been supplying the plant with raw materials since the 1970s, are unable to provide a greater amount of rare earth carbonate. So the supply from White Mesa will make use of available processing capacity without disrupting existing production.

The future

EF anticipates sending all or a large portion of its mixed rare earth carbonate to Neo for several years. It is also evaluating the potential to develop rare earth separation and other downstream capabilities at White Mesa.

Significant quantities of monazite are produced around the world from heavy mineral sand mining operations and there are large resources in the US, Australia, India and South Africa. EF is seeking to secure additional supply of monazite and has set a goal of processing 15,000 t/yr. It estimates that this would only represent 2pc of existing throughput and tailings capacity at White Mesa.

Silmet does not currently have the capacity to recover heavy rare earth elements, such as dysprosium and terbium which are needed for high-performance rare earth magnets. The White Mesa material will primarily be used to produce neodymium and praseodymium oxides, which are the largest rare earth component by volume in magnets, as well as other light rare earth value-added products. But as sufficient demand develops in Europe, Neo will look at adding heavy rare earth separation capacity at Silmet.

By Caroline Messecar