Interesting to note the rapid progress being made by the potential Serra Verde/Innovation Metals supply chain:
World’s largest ionic clay rare earth deposit
Large and growing NI 43-101 resource of 911Mt @ 0.12% TREO
Rich in critical rare earths – top 4 REE (Pr, Nd, Tb and Dy) are in high demand and represent >70% of project revenues
Rare earth grades 2x-5x higher than southern China deposits > 2.22% Dy
Low capex & opex drive project returns
Ionic clay geology analogous to that of the market dominating southern China producers
Fully liberated rare earth mineralization allows for low capex, low operating costs, simple open pit mining using trucks and shovels, and inexpensive processing using a straightforward, proven flowsheet
Existing access to water, power and transport infrastructure
Modular and phased production approach mitigates project risk profile and enables long term flexibility in project production and product mix
Ultra simple beneficiation:
"Test work results to date indicate that Serra Verde’s main saprolite mineral type is amenable to heap leaching for the recovery of REEs"
"Ore is crushed, agglomerated, stacked, and then leached to recover REE.
PLS from the heaps will be filtered and pre-concentrated in an NF-RO plant which will generate wash water for the heap as well as upgrade the solution strength. The concentrated solution will be treated in a hydrometallurgical plant to remove impurities and precipitate an intermediate mixed rare earth carbonate.
That RE carbonate then shipped to Innovation Metals who have just Ann'd successful separation @ $2kg:
"Although the process needs to be further demonstrated at a larger scale, these initial results indicate average separation costs of below $2.00/kg for a suite of high-value separated REEs, with capital costs for a 2,500 t REE / year RapidSX-based facility in the region of $10-15M or less (all $ in US dollars)."
Serra Verde: 1.454 MT TREO, 2.22% Dy
Extremely low cost open cut/heap leach to produce carbonate feedstock.
US$15M CapEx for a separation plant operating @ $2kg CoP via RapidSX™ process.
After burning thru circa $100M of SH funds & 7x dilution NTU offers a mere 0.057 MT TREO 8.396% Dy
High strip ratio over 6 patches of resource, much of which involves expensive U/G operations.
$60M CapEx for a complex "pilot" beneficiation plant to treat hard rock ore with unquantified CoP.
Totally unquantified "toll" separation.
Serra Verde also far from a one trick DyO pony with a broad suite of magnetics, and a cost structure that will happily sell all the $200kg DyO ROW will ever want.
Can anyone factually outline just how NTU could possibly compete, with either Serra Verde or Sino high Dy con at $15.60 net tax?
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