Northern Minerals’ Browns Range rare earth pilot plant in Western Australia has continued to churn out more product, with the company set to soon make a shipment of more than 40,000 kg to offtake partner thyssenkrupp Materials Trading GmbH.
The Browns Range pilot plant has now surpassed a new production milestone of 210,000 kg of rare earth carbonate (REC), Northern Minerals said.
A shipment of 40,406 kg of REC that contains 1,835 kg of dysprosium oxide and 233 kg of terbium oxide is ready at Browns Range for delivery to thyssenkrupp, bringing total production of REC from the pilot plant to 211,109 kg.
The REC produced to date contains a total 103,731 kg of rare earth oxide, which, in turn, contains 9,751 kg of dysprosium oxide and 1,245 kg of terbium oxide: critical elements in the permanent magnet motors used in E-mobility powertrain applications.
Northern Minerals CEO, Mark Tory, said: “Despite the operational and supply chain challenges in the past 12 months, the global trend toward electrification of transport continues to accelerate as a result of regulatory changes and bold decisions by car manufacturers in transition to fully-electric fleets.
“Browns Range is still the most strategically placed heavy rare earths operation in the western world, and we continue to apply our significant R&D learnings to successfully produce batches of REC for our European offtake partner thyssenkrupp from our pilot plant in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.”
