The Fen field
The Fen field
Situated in Nome municipality, 119 kilometers southwest of Oslo, the Fen field contains Europe’s largest deposit of light rare earth elements and is strategically located close to key markets.
Mineral Resource Estimate
The internationally recognized consulting firm SRK Consulting in September 2023 submitted a Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) according to the acknowledged CIM standards.
The MRE is based on 10,447 meters of diamond drilling within REE Minerals Fen exploitation license, and reports an inferred mineral resources of 95 million tons of mass at an average grade of 1.28 percent TREO, equal to 1.2 million tons of rare earth oxides. Further, it confirms that the deposit is open-ended in several directions and that rare earth element mineralization is continuous down to a depth of at least 600 meters.
This documents that the Fen field contains Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth elements.
Exploration and development activities by REE Minerals
Besides resource definition drilling in the exploitation area, REE Minerals has over the years conducted extensive surveys and studies in order to develop the project towards feasibility. This work includes bench scale beneficiation and metallurgical test work, mineralogical and economic studies performed by reputable industry experts such as:
SRK Consulting
21st NORTH
Wardell Armstrong
Kingston Process Metallurgy
Metallurgical Viability
Asplan Viak
Below is a timeline of the current development work:
Geology of the Fen field
The Fen complex, an early Cambrian intrusive complex of alkaline rocks and carbonatites, is situated in the vicinity of the late Palaeozoic alkaline Oslo Rift. The intrusion has a roughly circular outcrop of 9 km2 and is placed within Mesoproterozoic Telemark gneisses, which form part of the Gothian-Sveconorwegian terrane of southern Scandinavia.
The eastern parts of the complex are strongly enriched in rare earth elements.
The location became famous in the geological community in 1921, after the geologist Waldemar Christopher Broegger published his classic work on the intrusion. Broegger believed that carbonate rocks in the Fen Complex were of magmatic origin, and he became one of the first proponents of the existence of carbonate magmas. The claim, at that time outrageous, was not generally accepted until carbonate lava was observed flowing from the Oldoinyo Lengai, a volcano in Tanzania early in the 1960s. Broegger introduced the term "carbonatite" for carbonate rocks of apparent magmatic origin and named many rock types in this suite after localities in the Fen region. Today, the Fen complex is widely recognized as the type locality for carbonatites.
The Fen complex has an extensive exploration history comprising several episodes of mining initiated as early as the mid-seventeenth century. Most notably the Fen iron mines (1657-1927) and the Soeve niobium mine (1953-1965).