May 2012 Updates To The TMR Advanced Rare-Earth Projects Index

There is a German company “Deutsche Rohstoff AG” which claims to be about to start a drilling program in Germany for JORC standard REE resource estimates at a site known to contain some REEs:
http://www.rohstoff.de/geschaftsbereiche/hightech-metalle-seltene-erden-zinn-wolfram/storkwitz/?lang=en

Dear Sir,
I admire and love to read your articles and I would sincerly request you to please throw some light on which purity of individual rare earths are used in industry and please come out with an article which will surely help all people learning and updating the information on which industry required which purity and so on.

I am eagerly waiting for such an article to be published in your site who are no doubt knowledge hup and the authors are experts.

regards.

Dear Gareth, over a year ago I had posted some questions regarding a company then known as Exploration Orbite and now known as Orbite Aluminae. Last April they announced for the first time the presence of rare earths in their aluminous clay deposit found in the Gaspe Peninsula. To be honest, I was taken aback by your flippant dismissal of Orbite and its potential to offer a meaningful solution to the rare earth supply problem for North America. Now, a little over a year later, Orbite has made waves in the rare earth field again by announcing that they have successfully extracted 99.9% pure rare earth oxides using their patented technology. It would seem the rare earth field has kept their heads in the sand by ignoring Orbite and their remarkable achievements. I don’t doubt the reasons why, Orbite’s technology makes it possible for the inexpensive production of the full suite of rare earths from the tailings of industrial metal mining operations and effectively marginalizes the need for primary production of rare earths. My only hope is that now with this achievement from Orbite, experts such as yourself will begin to be more openminded in your commentary and coverage of such important developments.

For your reference, here is a copy of our previous correspondence:

Fred April 19, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Gareth, I don’t know if you are aware but last week a small Quebec company published a report suggesting they could extract rare earth oxides from a clay deposit they are developing to 99.99% purity. The quantities aren’t huge but the technology seems to be quite impressive. You can check them out here:
http://www.explorationorbite.com/
I’d be curious as to your thoughts regarding the potential of this technology.

Gareth Hatch April 19, 2011 at 10:04 pm
@Fred: I did see the news on Exploration Orbite. Including scandium, their initial data indicates a material grade of 0.05% of rare earths maximum. This is very low … the La and Nd apparently present, for example, is at maybe twice the average crustal abundance for these elements – i.e. nothing particularly noteworthy. Any process used to recover these elements, even as byproducts, would have to be extremely low cost for it to be worthwhile.

10 Fred April 20, 2011 at 8:49 am
Yes, I agree with you about the low grade. However, it is my understanding that the extraction process is quite cheap and that they are testing it on other deposits where the rare earth content is higher… definitely something to keep an eye on. It is particularly relevant when you consider that most rare earth projects don’t have a cheap or easy way to recover oxides in high purity.

11 Gareth Hatch April 20, 2011 at 9:46 am
@Fred: there’s low grade, and then there’s LOW grade… there are advanced projects out there with grades over 300 times richer in rare earths than this one. Understand that the value of the potential primary product in this case, aluminous clay, does not give very much wiggle room in terms of the cost of extraction of any rare earths present.

Gareth, thank-you for the quick reply and yes, I am a shareholder of Orbite Aluminae. And my apologies for not providing you with sources to back up my statements. Orbite’s announcement regarding the extraction of heavy rare earths can be found here:
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/orbite-successfully-produces-first-separated-heavy-rare-earth-oxides-from-north-american-tsx-ort-1673464.htm
They recently published a PEA outlining the costs for extracting rare earths that can be found on their website:
http://www.orbitealuminae.com/media/upload/whitepapers/PEA_Orbite_May30-Final.pdf
In it, you find a description of their process for producing metallurgical alumina. As part of an acid recovery loop, the rare earths are concentrated and purified to the point where they can easily be separated and covered in to single, purified oxides. The costs being born on the back of alumina production makes the rare earth processing very cheap, almost free. That is, when costs are apportioned per tonne of alumina produced, the OPEX goes from ~$201 to $209… an $8 cost.