Last year Australia’s minerals agency signed a deal with its US counterpart to jointly develop both countries’ critical mineral reserves.
The agreement, was in response to the US’s need to broaden its supply chain of rare earths and critical minerals, which China currently dominates.
USA Rare Earth LLC holds an option to earn up to 80% in the Round Top rare earth and technical metals industrial minerals project located in Texas. The Round Top project’s envious location in the US, coupled with its propensity to produce heavy rare earth elements along with other sought after minerals such as lithium, makes the project well placed to address the US critical metal requirements.
To this end, on the 22nd of December, USA Rare Earth announced that it had reached a strategic agreement with Australia’s Arafura Resources Limited (ASX: ARU) which are developing the Nolans Bore neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) deposit in Australia’ s Northern Territory. Under the terms of the Letter of Intent, Arafura will send heavy rare earth concentrate from Nolans for processing at USA Rare Earth’s Colorado pilot plant.
This collaboration demonstrates how the US and Australia can take positive steps in ensuring a reliable rare earth supply independent of China.
In terms of USA Rare Earth specifically, this Letter of Intent emphasizes the versatility of USA Rare Earth’s Continuous Iron Exchange/Continuous Ion Chromatography (CIX-CIC) processing method that enables the company to process feedstock from other projects rather than only Round Top. Moreover, this facility will be the first rare earth processing facility outside of China.
Click here to access the original press release
