REE Minerals and Rare Earth Salts to cooperate on separation of rare earths
REE Minerals AS and Rare Earth Salts Separations & Refining LLC have entered into a letter of intent to cooperate on the processing of rare earth oxides from the Fen field in Norway, which REE Minerals believes contain Europe’s largest deposit of light rare earth elements.
The companies will test mineral samples from the Fen deposit to evaluate and recommend a process for generating rare earth concentrate, develop an optimized process flow, and produce rare earth oxide samples for sales certification and offtake agreement negotiation..
REE Minerals' Fen field
REE Minerals has been granted an extraction license for rare earth elements at the Fen field by the Norwegian Directorate of Mining. The company has conducted several drilling programs, and a recent mineral resource report documents an inferred deposit of 95 million tons with an average grade of 1.3 percent TREO (total rare earth oxides). This supports REE Minerals’ belief that the Fen field holds Europe’s largest known deposit of light rare earth elements.
“Based on this confirmation, we are now maturing the project. Processing will be vital, and we look forward to working closely with Rare Earth Salts. Their separation process is highly cost-competitive and environmentally friendly, both key considerations for us,” says Thor Bendik Weider, Chairman of REE Minerals AS.
Rare Earth Salts' innovative separations
Rare Earth Salts has developed patented technologies for the separation and refining of rare earth elements to high purity from various feedstocks worldwide, including both ore-based and recycled material. Rare Earth Salts has developed commercial processes to produce three of the “BIG 4” most critical rare earth oxides (REOs): neodymium, praseodymium and terbium. Rare Earth Salts recently produced high-purity NdPr from light rare earth concentrate feedstock, as well as terbium and yttrium from recycled feedstock.
“We look forward to investigating the commercialization of the Fen field deposit, which has the potential to become a substantial resource of key industrial elements,” says Aaron Dowd, CEO of Rare Earth Salts.
REE’s critical role
Rare earth elements are a set of 17 elements in the periodic table that play a critical role in national security, energy independence, environmental future and economic prosperity. These elements, especially praseodymium and neodymium, are crucial in products such as electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as various types of military applications.
Contact
Thor Bendik Weider, Chairman, REE Minerals AS, +47 920 84 303 | thor.bendik.weider@reeminerals.no
Aaron T. Dowd, Chief Executive Officer, Rare Earth Salts Separations & Refining LLC | +1 (402) 910-7167 | dowd@rareearthsalts.com
About Rare Earth Salts
Rare Earth Salts was founded by Dr. Joseph Brewer to address the global need for a cost-effective, sustainable and environmentally friendly rare earth element separation process. Rare Earth Salts has developed patented technologies for the separation and refining of rare earth elements to high purity from various feedstocks worldwide, including both ore-based and recycled material. Rare Earth Salts' 50,000-square-foot headquarters, commercial demonstration plant, laboratory, and research & development facility are in Nebraska, the heartland of America. Rare Earth Salts Separations & Refining LLC is a privately held limited liability company.
More information: www.rareearthsalts.com/