Energy Fuels to secure Australian source of rare earth minerals for US supply chain

The MOU describes indicative commercial terms and provides Energy Fuels with a binding exclusivity period to end on 1 March 2024, during which Energy Fuels will be entitled to conduct due diligence and the parties will negotiate definitive agreements.

The Donald Project is a world-class, world scale, ‘shovel-ready’ critical mineral deposit that Energy Fuels believes would provide it with another near-term, low-cost, and large-scale source of monazite sand in an REE concentrate (REEC) that would be transported to the company’s White Mesa Mill in Utah, USA for processing into REE oxides and other advanced REE materials and recovery of the contained uranium.

With supportive US government policies, and US and European companies increasingly focused on security of supply, Energy Fuels is rapidly creating a new significant REE supply chain that can reduce America’s reliance on REEs from China. As part of this strategy, the company is actively securing long-term sources of REEC through offtake (Chemours), joint venture (Astron), and direct ownership (the company’s 100% owned Bahia Project in Brazil). Through these assets and potentially others, Energy Fuels is building a world significant REE oxide supply chain that the company believes will be attractive to EV manufacturers and their Tier 1 suppliers.

Mark S. Chalmers, President and CEO of Energy Fuels stated:

“Energy Fuels is working to secure future large-scale in-situ rare earth element projects around the world, which we expect to become low-cost sources of feed to supply our US-centric REE supply chain in the coming years. Earlier in 2023, we acquired the Bahia Project in Brazil, and now we are working toward partnering with Astron on the Donald Project in Australia. Energy Fuels’ goal is to source monazite from the US and around the world and become a reliable, globally diversified, multi-decade supplier of US-produced magnet REE oxides to EV manufactures and other end-users. Our announcement today should help people ‘connect-the-dots’ to better understand the magnitude of our burgeoning REE business strategy. We are earning into an essentially ‘de-risked’ heavy mineral sand project that is in Australia, has many years of detailed resource and project evaluation, and has all the main regulatory approvals in place or well-advanced.

“And we are able to develop this US-centric REE supply chain without diminishing our US-leading uranium production capability in any way. Uranium will always continue to be our primary focus. However, REE and uranium production go hand-in-hand, as the REEC from the Donald Project contains decades of low-cost recoverable uranium, which perfectly complements the company’s large-scale uranium production. While this represents only a small part of our total uranium production, these pounds of uranium are very valuable to us because their incremental cost of production is expected to be very low, while providing a secure source of uranium for the generation of clean, carbon-free electricity in the US. “We are putting Utah on the map as a responsible domestic supplier of many clean energy and critical minerals, including uranium, rare earths, vanadium, and even potentially life-saving medical isotopes. We are not aware of any other US company able to produce as many advanced materials that contribute to carbon-reduction and electrification as Energy Fuels.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/04012024/energy-fuels-to-secure-australian-source-of-rare-earth-minerals-for-us-based-supply-chain/