The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
REE, graphite deposits found at opposite ends of Alaska may close strategic gap
With a significant deposit of heavy rare earths in the Southeast, the largest domestic graphite deposit in the Northwest, and vast potential in the 1,300-mile expanse between the two, Alaska is a viable alternative to importing many of the strategic and critical minerals vital to national security, green energy and modern technology.
"The State of Alaska is blessed with vast mineral potential on its lands," Alaska Department of Natural Resources Deputy Commissioner Ed Fogels told lawmakers in Washington D.C. recently. "Alaska has more than 70 known occurrences of rare earth elements and multiple occurrences of other strategic and critical minerals."
In his testimony on behalf of U.S. Senate Bill 883, "The American Mineral Security Act of 2015," Fogels said Alaska is in the midst of a multiyear program aimed at further quantifying the state's strategic mineral potential and further refining its mine permitting process - efforts that could provide a blueprint for the federal government.
"Alaska's strategic minerals initiative can be instructive of how this effort might work on a national scale, and we will continue to be available to share lessons we have learned," he told those gathered at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Ucore Rare Metals and Graphite One Resources, meanwhile, hope their critical minerals deposits located at opposite ends of Alaska will soon become domestic sources for some of the high-technology and energy minerals on which the United States is currently relying on foreign countries to supply.
Heavy rare earth
The current discussion over strategic and critical minerals vaulted into the national spotlight when China announced in 2009 that it would set restrictions on the amount of rare earths available for exports. At the time, the Middle Kingdom accounted for some 95 percent of the global supply of these 16 ingredients key to modern technology.
Due to the resulting pinch in global supply, countries around the world began seeking alternative supplies of rare earths. In the United States, this led to the re-opening of the Mountain Pass Mine in California and the emergence of several other potential sources of these metals.
Ucore Rare Metals' Bokan Mountain project in Southeast Alaska, which is on track to become a supplier of heavy rare earths found only in trace quantities at Mountain Pass, is among U.S. deposits viewed as potential domestic sources of the suite of strategic and critical minerals.
According to the most recent calculations, the Dotson Ridge deposit at Bokan contains 4.79 million metric tons of indicated resources averaging 0.6 percent (63.54 million pounds) total rare earth oxides and 1.05 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.6 percent (13.96 million lbs.) TREO. About 39 percent of the TREO in both categories are the higher value heavy rare earths.
Four of the heavy rare earths found at Dotson Ridge - yttrium, dysprosium, terbium and europium - are listed as critical minerals in the United States. The deposit also has a healthy amount of neodymium, a light rare earth also on the U.S. Department of Energy's list of critical minerals.
Ucore commended Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, for introducing S.833 to the Senate for consideration.
"In identifying strategic resources located on U.S. soil and seeking to streamline the permitting processes related thereto, the act has important implications for the Bokan-Dotson Ridge rare earth element project," said Ucore President and CEO Jim McKenzie.
Earlier this year, Ucore announced the successful separation of the tightly interlocked rare earths at Bokan Mountain using a revolutionary technique that is considered both economic and environmentally sound.
The technique created 99.9 percent pure dysprosium and neodymium salts and a 99.1 percent pure terbium salt. All three of these heavy rare earth elements are considered critical to military, high-tech and green sector applications.
With a significant deposit of rare earths and a cutting-edge technique for separating these critical metals, Ucore is now putting the finishing touches on a plan to produce heavy rare earths on American soil.
"This resource upgrade, together with our recent advances in molecular recognition technology for refining applications, makes for a compelling mine-to-metal story at Bokan," said McKenzie.
Filling graphite demand
While considered ordinary compared to the exotic rare earth metals, graphite also is considered a critical mineral to the United States.
According to the U. S. Geological Survey, graphite is one of 19 minerals for which the United States is 100 percent-reliant on imports. Roughly 45 percent of graphite used in the U. S. since 2010 has been imported from China, most of the balance comes from Mexico, Canada and Brazil. "There has not been any graphite mined in the U.S. since 1991," said Fogels.
The DNR deputy commissioner also told the lawmakers that the largest graphite deposit in the United States is found in western Alaska.
In fact, the Graphite Creek deposit is so large that a 50,000-metric-ton-per-day mine could operate there for centuries. Recently, Graphite One has narrowed its exploration on upgrading a portion of this world-class deposit to a confidence category that it can permit.
As a result, drilling upgraded 17.95 million metric tons of the deposit to the indicated category, averaging 6.3 percent graphitic carbon.
The 1.13 metric tons of graphite proven to an indicated resource could help supply the anticipated steep climb in demand due largely to graphitic carbon's prevalence in lithium-ion batteries.
"Our Graphite Creek project in Alaska has the potential to be a significant supplier of high-quality, large flake graphite at a time when technology is driving increasing demand - and has established natural graphite as a critical and strategic mineral," said Graphite One President and CEO Anthony Huston.
According to the USGS, Tesla Motors' lithium-ion battery Gigafactory in Nevada, alone, will require 93,000 metric tons of flake graphite for use as anode material when the facility comes online in a startup currently scheduled for 2020.
Because of its military applications, increasing demand in the private sector and the lack of a domestic supply, graphite also is on a short list of mined materials that the Pentagon is watching.
"The United States has no domestic production of natural graphite, but it is consumed by roughly 90 U.S. companies," the U.S. Department of Defense wrote in a recent strategic and critical minerals stockpile report. "Top-quality flake graphite will likely see an increase in demand in the coming years; meanwhile the supply looks to be steady at best, and there are concerns about potential export controls out of China."
Recent metallurgical work has shown that Graphite Creek graphite is uniquely suited for lithium-ion batteries and other high-technology and green energy applications that are expected to drive the need for a U.S. source of graphite.
A preliminary economic assessment for Graphite Creek is on track to be finished by mid-year, bringing this critical mineral project one step closer to reality.
"We are focused on developing our deposit as a source of high-quality graphite to meet growing domestic and global demand," said Huston.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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