Ucore's rare earth separation plant nears readiness for tests

Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Feb. 17 reported that its SuperLig®-One rare earth separation pilot plant, currently being constructed in Utah by IBC Advanced Technologies Inc., is expected to be completed and ready for initial fluid testing in March.

Roughly 40 metric tons of material sourced from Ucore's Bokan-Dotson Ridge property in Southeast Alaska was processed at Tomra Systems ASA in Germany utilizing dual energy x-ray transmission ore sorting technology.

This process, which represents the first step in Ucore's process flowsheet, eliminated 52 percent of the feed as waste while retaining 96 percent of the rare earths, resulting in 19 metric tons of sorted rare earth-bearing material.

A three- metric-ton sample of this sorted material has been shipped to SGS Lakefield Research Ltd. in Ontario. Utilizing the circuit developed for the Bokan preliminary economic assessment, SGS will produce roughly 500 gallons of pregnant leach solution from the sample.

In addition to delivering a solution suitable for separation in the SuperLig®-One pilot facility, the SGS work will provide further independent confirmation of the process flowsheet set out in the PEA. The Bokan solution will undergo an initial test run in the SuperLig®-One facility followed by a production run beginning in March.

The initial output product from the pilot program will be heavy rare earth elements in the form of metal carbonates of dysprosium, terbium and europium, scheduled for delivery in the second quarter.

"The maiden run of SuperLig®-One appears to represent the first time that strategic metals such as dysprosium, terbium and europium have been produced on U.S. soil using American feedstock, both individually and at high purity," said Ucore President and CEO Jim McKenzie. "The use of a domestic intellectual property to produce critical domestic materials demonstrates an emerging ability to establish a standalone rare earth supply chain in the West, independent of increasingly unpredictable Chinese sources."

-SHANE LASLEY