The Ashram Deposit, wholly owned by the Company and located in
The Company is pleased to report a significant simplification and optimization of the Ashram Deposit's front-end mineral processing flowsheet whereby 30-35+% REO monazite mineral concentrates at strong recovery (between 60-70%) are produced using only flotation. This testwork has been completed at bench scale, is demonstrated repeatable, and has been scaled up successfully from 1 kg to 10 kg floats using conventional mechanical flotation cells. The recent testwork, which uses readily available reagents, has been carried out by SGS Canada in
In addition to the mineral processing developments, a streamlined hydrometallurgical flowsheet has also been developed and demonstrated at bench scale for the downstream processing of the monazite flotation concentrate produced by SGS. The hydrometallurgical flowsheet uses a standard acid bake - water leach process followed by thorium removal and direct rare earth element ('REE') precipitation. This downstream testwork has been carried out by
Company President
This streamlined hydrometallurgical flowsheet developed and demonstrated by L3 on the SGS monazite concentrates achieved an overall recovery into solution for NdPr above 95% and TbDy above 82% while significantly reducing sulfuric acid consumption. The thorium was fully removed from the water leach solution using a three-stage solvent extraction process. The REEs were then precipitated using oxalic acid and converted to carbonates using a 1-step metathesis process, achieving an overall recovery (deposit material to marketable mixed rare earth elements product) of over 62% NdPr. In addition to the oxalate and carbonate REE precipitates, the downstream flowsheet is amenable to producing a mixed rare earth oxide ('mixed REO'), thereby providing significant flexibility in end-user offtake preferences and shipping optimization.
The Ashram Deposit ranks as one of the largest REE deposits globally, consisting of a monazite-dominated, single mineralized body outcropping at surface, and has a footprint approximately 700 m along strike, over 300 m across, and 600 m deep, remaining open in several directions. Therefore, the deposit is envisioned to be an open-pit extraction operation at production, with a very low strip ratio. Coupled with a monazite rare earth mineralogy and strong NdPr distributions, these attributes allow for the company to have significant flexibility in flowsheet design, whereby a 60+% overall recovery of the NdPr into saleable product is significant. The new mineral processing flowsheet will permit an operator to leverage the size of the deposit and optimize mining for effective recovery into a high-grade monazite concentrate in order to significantly simplify and thereby reduce project mineral processing and downstream hydromet CAPEX and OPEX.
About the Ashram Deposit
The Ashram Deposit ranks as one of the largest REE (and fluorspar) deposits globally, consisting of a monazite dominated, single mineralized body outcropping at surface, and has a footprint approximately 700 m along strike, over 300 m across, and 600 m deep, remaining open in several directions. The deposit hosts a measured resource of 1.6 million tonnes (Mt) at 1.77% rare earth oxide (REO) and 3.8% F, an indicated resource of 27.7 Mt at 1.90% REO and 2.9% F, and an inferred resource of 219.8 Mt at 1.88% REO and 2.2% F, at a cut-off grade of 1.25% REO
(Effective Date
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Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements, which include any information about activities, events, or developments that the Company believes, expects, or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Forward-looking statements in this news release include that that mixed REC is readily saleable; that partial separation of REEs will allow for the marketability of individual elements to be produced; that Ashram has the potential to become one of the largest fluorspar deposit and a long-term supplier to the met-spar and acid-spar markets and that the Company is positioning to be one of the lowest cost rare earth element producers globally. These forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Risks that could change or prevent these events, activities or developments from coming to fruition include: that we may not be able to fully finance any additional exploration on the
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