UK-headquartered rare earths developer Pensana has been invited to present to the board of international energy company Equinor an overview of its plans to establish an independent and sustainable rare earth supply chain, as it is currently doing in the Humber Freeport, in England.  

Equinor and Pensana will jointly study the use of hydrogen to recycle end-of-life wind turbine nacelles.

The company is also developing the Longonjo rare earth mine, in Angola, which will supply mixed rare earth sulphate that will be treated at the $195-million Saltend processing facility at the Humber Freeport.

The refinery, the construction of which broke ground in July, is the first major rare earths separation facility to be built in more than a decade.

In turn, “Hydrogen to Humber”, or H2H, is Equinor’s flagship project with a 600 MW low-carbon hydrogen production plant being built at the Saltend Chemicals Park.

The plant promises to reduce the overall Saltend site’s carbon dioxide emissions by nearly one-million tonnes a year, or 30% of the park’s total emissions.

Pensana is currently in discussion with major offshore wind original-equipment manufacturers about providing an independent and sustainable supply of rare earths for the manufacture of the magnets to be used in the nacelles of the wind turbines going into the 50 GW of offshore wind in the North Sea.

It is studying with Equinor, the use of low-carbon hydrogen to be produced at Saltend, to recycle the 7 t of permanent magnets in each of the 260-m-high 13 MW Haliade X turbines being installed in the 3.6 GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm.

H2H Saltend is the kickstarter project for the wider Zero Carbon Humber scheme, which involves a partnership of 14 organisations that are committed to making the freeport the world’s first net zero industrial cluster by 2040.

Pensana earlier this year signed a cooperation agreement with Equinor to share technical and commercial information around developing a low-energy method of recycling end-of-life magnets at Pensana’s rare earth hub.

Pensana looks to recycle an addressable market of 4 000 t/y of end-of-life permanent magnets.

The company explains in a previous release that recycling permanent magnets using hydrogen – not as a fuel, but as a reductant – while benefitting from the decarbonised power supply within Saltend, offers a clean alternative using 88% less energy than virgin magnet manufacture.