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- Teams have been continuing their work amidst lockdown and have started processing rare earths in the US.
- 70% of Round Top rare earths are in the heavy category. As such their feasibility study is being expedited with maiden production expected within 30 months.
- Last week’s equipment purchases from Hitachi enables 2000 tons/year of sintered rare earth magnet processing in US. Exploring JV structures for processing.
- First mind to magnet strategy employed in the US.
- Working with US and foreign governments to get them involved in securing domestic supplies of critical materials.
- As many as 9 rare earths are used in medical equipment for the treatment of covid-19.
Pini Althaus, CEO of USA Rare Earth has been an executive officer in the Mining & Resource sector since 2002, Althaus has successfully identified and acquired several significant mining projects in the United States, Canada, Australia, China and Latin America. He joins Lara Smith, founder of Core Consultants to discuss progress in their USA mine to magnet strategy and the important role they play in ending the US’s reliance on China. The following is a transcript of the interview:
Lara Smith: Hello, I’m Lara Smith, I’m the MD of Core Consultants, here from my couch in Tel Aviv. I’m sitting here with Pini Althaus from USA Rare Earth. Pini, where are you today?
Pini Althaus: I’m in New York. We’re on the lockdown like many other people.
Lara Smith: Like me. Like you. So you’re in New York under lockdown. Fantastic. And have you been able to work under lock down? Has the project continued?
Pini Althaus: It has, we’ve been very fortunate that our processing teams in Colorado and in Alabama have been continuing with their work. We’ve started processing the rare earths as the first phase and replicating some of the work that we’ve previously done under a DLA and DOE grants, that’s been progressing quite well. We’ve been fortunate to be quite active here, even under sort of the ongoing situation.
Lara Smith: Okay, that’s great. So you’re developing the Round Top rare earth deposit and that’s pretty exciting because it’s going to be one of the first heavy rare earths in the U S.
Pini Althaus: Yeah, that’s correct. So I think 70% of our rare earths are in the heaviest category. And as I’m sure you and others realize there’s a shortage, if you will, or an upcoming shortage, of the heavies, so they’re going to be very much in demand. We’re expediting sort of the final feasibility studies, and we’ll be hoping to take this into production in the next 30 months.
Lara Smith: And your most recent announcement talks about the Hitachi acquisition for their magnets, so you’re going to be going into the sort of a mine to magnet strategy which you’re employing.
Pini Althaus: Yeah. I mean, one of the major issues facing rare earth projects outside of China is not just the raw materials, but also the downstream capabilities as far as the processing, the metals and alloys and the magnets. The metals and alloys does exist in the U S for the processing, you know, prior to us opening up our facility in Colorado and in the magnet simply didn’t exist. And we were very fortunate to be able to enter into a transaction last week to purchase the equipment, the NdFeB equipment formally owned and operated by Hitachi. So we’ve got that equipment and we’ll have the capacity to produce up to 2000 tons per year of sintered rare earth magnets. I don’t know if we’ll be getting into that directly as an operator of the magnet plant, we are looking at various joint venture structures with companies in that space, but it’s important for us to have that sort of mine to magnet ability here in the United States.
Lara Smith: And you’d be the first, I suppose, because we had one operator of a mine to magnets strategy, I think that was Less Common Minerals where they had their mine in South Africa, but nothing since.
Pini Althaus: Yeah, this would be the first outside of China, and again, both on the processing side and the magnet side we would be the first in the Americas, if you will.
Lara Smith: Yeah, so that’s very, very exciting. And have you had much government support for this or has it so far been privately funded or funded by other institutions?
Pini Althaus: Yeah, today it’s being privately funded. There has been sort of a lot of positive, I guess rhetoric, if you will, coming out of Washington and we are starting to see movement which is bipartisan as far as the U S having to have its own domestic supply of critical materials, including the downstream as well. We have received overwhelmingly positive reaction to the acquisition of this magnet equipment and as everyone knows, the solicitations are out or two solicitations out from DOD, potentially with others to come. So we’re working, I would say, together with the government to see sort of how we can get them involved in a more proactive manner.
Lara Smith: And the government is still willing to engage even during this time because you want to think that they’re very, like, bogged down with Covid 19 and solving this virus rather than making other deals, but it sounds like it’s all kind of going ahead.
Pini Althaus: Yeah, I mean, from what we’ve heard, and you know, we’ve had the ability to communicate when necessary, the people that are focused within the government on this particular issue are still focused on that. Obviously, attention has been taken away by what’s happening with Covid 19, but what it has done is, and you may have seen some of the comments coming out of members of Congress, and then this is the administration about this reliance on China for in general critical materials, which includes materials to do with Covid 19 in the medical space, you know, what a lot of people don’t realize is that there are a number of rare earths in medical equipment as well, and as much as nine rare earths in equipment being used for Covid 19. I mean, but there’s an overall strategy to just end this dependence on China for critical materials across the board, including rare earths, and that has been voiced by various members of Congress over the past couple of weeks.
Lara Smith: Wow, so in some ways the Covid 19 has actually been good for you in terms of just waking everybody up and getting things moving or great interest.
Pini Althaus: Yeah, I mean, one never wants sort of a tragedy like this situation to sort of directly benefit commercially, if you will, it’s always better for us to sort of see the warning signs before these things happen, but it certainly continues to wake up the American people and the government. It’s not just the American government, it’s foreign governments as well. Before the lockdown started we had meetings with several foreign governments, let’s call them allied countries, who were very concerned about the dependence on China for the critical materials and the downstream capabilities as well. So I think this has further emphasized that urgency, if you will.
Lara Smith: Alright. Pini, thank you very, very much, is there anything else you want to add to that?
Pini Althaus: No, thank you. Just wishing everyone to stay safe and we hope that, you know, Round Top and the processing of the magnet manufacturing that we put into place we believe it’s going to be a game changer for the industry and for the U S and for allies.
So stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks and months.
Lara Smith: We will, we’ll catch up with you soon. Thank you very much. And stay safe.
Pini Althaus: Thank you, Lara.
Lara Smith: Take care, bye.
