Vital starts commissioning of Canadian REE plant
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Canadian rare earths miner Vital Metals has started commissioning its rare earth extraction facility in Saskatoon, Canada, starting ore feed into the dense media separation (DMS) plant.
Vital will commission the Saskatoon facility incrementally over coming months with plans to produce a 2.5 t of rare earth carbonate sample for offtake partner REEtec Ag as the next step of product qualification.
Vital is processing ore from its Nechalacho operation in Canada’s Northwest Territories, where mining started in mid-2021.
“This is an exciting step for the company as we continue our transition from rare earth developer to operator. We have been a rare earth miner for more than 12 months and now we can commence production of rare earth carbonate. We are excited to have reached this milestone at Saskatoon despite the challenges surrounding supply chains and logistics across the world,” said MD Geoff Atkins.
“We are targeting to produce 2.5 t of carbonate for REEtec as an important step of our production qualification process before we commence ramping up our volume. We are forecasting for this to occur in October 2022.”
Vital’s Saskatoon plant will have initial throughput capacity of 1 000 t/y of rare earth oxide, excluding cerium, which is equivalent to 470 t/y of neodymium praseodymium (NdPr).
Stage 2 will produce 2 000 t/y of rare earth oxide, excluding cerium, equivalent to 940 t/y NdPr.
Under Vital’s amended offtake agreement with REEtec, following REEtec’s decision to use Vital’s product as its principal feedstock for its rare earth separation facility, Vital will incrementally deliver 187.5 t NdPr to REEtec by October 2023 and a minimum of 750 t/y of NdPr over five years for a total 3 750 t NdPr, contained within some 2 000 t/y of total rare earth oxide.
Comments
The
content
you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.
If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.
If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.
For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation