Wyoming continues to stand out as a significant player in the mining of rare earths now supplied mostly by China. At the same time, a retooled uranium mill in Utah owned by a company with operations stretching from Wyoming to Madagascar, aspires to become a leader in the domestic milling of the rare earth ore monazite — which it plans to import from Africa, Australia and South America.
“It makes a ton of sense, and it is cheaper than anybody else out there. It's actually a supply chain that is competitive with China,” Curtis Moore, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development with Energy Fuels Resources, told Cowboy State Daily.
Energy Fuels Resources owns uranium operations near Kaycee and Jeffrey City, and a uranium mill in Blanding, Utah.
Moore said it retooled the White Mesa uranium mill in Blanding so it’s now able to mill commercially viable amounts of monazite, which holds important concentrations of rare earth elements.
“The ones that China is threatening to cut us off from, the medium and heavy rare elements,” said Moore, whose company is based in Lakewood, Colorado. The imported monazite will be milled into in-demand rare earth elements like neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxide.
This capacity to mill valuable rare earth elements led to a partnership announced in March between the Korean electronic motor manufacturer POSCO and Energy Fuels.
POSCO needs NdPr oxide for processing into NdPr metal, alloy and finished high-performance permanent rare earth element magnets for use in POSCO's traction motor cores, according to an Energy Fuels statement.
“The companies have also indicated their intention to discuss the potential for long-term supply arrangements, further solidifying the partnership and ensuring a steady supply of rare earth oxides independent of China,” according to the release.
Rare Earth Ore 101
Three major types of rare earth ore include monazite, bastnäsite and allanite.
Monazite is found throughout Wyoming, but Energy Fuels said the state does not produce a commercial supply of this ore. That’s why Energy Fuels is sourcing this type of rare earth ore from mines in Florida and Georgia, while it sees the most promise in the ore it plans to ship in from overseas.
Mining operations in Wyoming are zeroing in on two other types of rare earth ores.
In March, the Bear Lodge rare earth mining and refining project near Upton announced $553 million in debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States. It’s focusing on mining and processing one of the “world’s premier bastnäsite deposits,” according to marketing materials from Rare Element Resources.
As for allanite, that’s what Wyoming Rare USA expects to mine from its Halleck Creek Project near Wheatland.
Wyoming Key To Independence?
On the road to rare earth independence from China, say those working on mining and milling operations in the U.S., there’s a need for more processing facilities. And while the Energy Fuels mill in Utah could service domestic clients while also milling imported ore, companies like Wyoming Rare USA are looking to both mine and mill in one general location.
“The goal and what we're working towards would be to have a processing facility in the region,” Joe Evers, president of Wyoming Rare USA told Cowboy State Daily. “We really like the Wheatland area for its access to infrastructure and its proximity to our mine.”
Evers added, “We need to be able to process that and end up with what they call an oxide at the end, which then goes into your milling and magnet manufacturing and everything.”
And whether its allanite from near Wheatland or bastnäsite from northeastern Wyoming or monazite from Madagascar that’s shipped into the U.S., it all gets milled, processed and separated into rare earth elements crucial for manufacturing high tech machinery like electric motors and robots used in factories.
There are also defense applications, adding to the urgency to ramp up mining and processing in the U.S.
Evers compared the market to different rare earth ores to oil exploration in Wyoming.
“This might be a little bit of a clumsy analogy, but in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming right now they produce oil from eight different formations,” said Evers. “You can tell the difference between the oil. It might be lighter in color, it might be heavier, sweet or sour, whatever that might be. But at the end of the day, it still gets turned into gasoline.”
Evers is making the point that rare earth ores can all be processed to produce in-demand concentrations of rare earth elements.
In the rush to produce these rare earth elements, or REEs at an industrial scale, said Evers, “The state of Wyoming is at the forefront of this kind of developing area of mining. But it's something that's important for the nation. And for the state, I think that it's no accident that there's so much going on in Wyoming.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
