Terres rares : Exploration et production miniére

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Un projet de raffinerie de terres rares en Australie securise 1.15 milliard de dollars de financement :

Iluka secures $1.2B loan from Australia for rare earths refinery

Reuters | June 22, 2026

Iluka Resources said on Tuesday that the Australian government has provided a A$1.65 billion ($1.15 billion) non-recourse loan to build the Eneabba rare earths refinery in Western Australia.

Iluka said the loan access was confirmed by Export Finance Australia, the country’s export credit agency.

The funding comes as Western countries look to reduce their dependence on rare earths from China, the largest producer, for the materials that are vital for electric vehicles and other technologies.

Iluka expects the first tranche of the funding, comprising A$1.25 billion, to be fully drawn by 2026-end, when Eneabba is expected to be 75% complete. The refinery is currently over 50% complete, the company said.

Eneabba will be Australia’s first fully integrated rare earths refinery, according to the company.

The miner said Civmec has been awarded a contract for structural, mechanical, piping, electrical and instrumentation (SMPEI) works at the refinery.

Separately, Iluka said it had concluded a binding agreement for the supply of magnet rare earth oxides to an unnamed global automotive company.

The agreement has an initial term of four years, and represents about 10% of Iluka’s planned production over that period.

Iluka expects revenue over the contract period to be $155 million minimum and $172 million assuming prices forecast by the industry.

($1 = 1.4290 Australian dollars)

https://www.mining.com/web/iluka-secure ... -refinery/

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suite de ce post du 19 dec 2021 : viewtopic.php?p=2332933#p2332933

Sweden grants 25-year concession to heavy rare earth deposit

Staff Writer | June 29, 2026


The Norra Kärr deposit was discovered by Tasman Metals (a predecessor company to Leading Edge Materials) in 2009. Credit: Leading Edge Materials

The Swedish government has granted Leading Edge Materials a 25-year mining lease for what the company calls one of the most significant rare earth deposits in Europe.

In a statement on Monday, the Canadian critical minerals explorer said its Norra Kärr project in southern Sweden was awarded the exploitation concession following a formal recommendation from the country’s mining inspectorate endorsing its development.

According to Leading Edge, a decisive factor in the government’s decision was the project’s strategic importance to Sweden and the EU, citing a prior study by the Geological Survey of Sweden that confirmed Norra Kärr as one of Europe’s richest rare earth deposits.

Specifically, the report highlighted the project’s particularly high proportion of the so-called “heavy rare earths” — terbium, dysprosium and yttrium — all of which are key inputs in the production of permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and other advanced technologies, including defense applications.

With no rare earth production anywhere in the EU today, the government concluded that supplying Sweden and Europe with these critical raw materials clearly outweighs competing land-use interests, the company said.

“The government’s decision affirms that this is a strategically important heavy rare earth deposit, located in a Tier 1 jurisdiction,” Kurt Budge, CEO of Leading Edge, commented in a press release.

Shares of Leading Edge Materials soared nearly 28% following the announcement, taking the company’s market capitalization to approximately C$85 million ($59.8 million).

Rich in heavy rare earths
In the company’s release, Budge also noted that the Norra Kärr project has “the capacity to supply all of Europe’s annual dysprosium requirements alongside meaningful terbium and yttrium production,” offering a “realistic solution” to the continent as it looks to reduce its reliance on Chinese imports.

A 2021 preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on the project had outlined a potential 26-year mine operation producing an average of 5,340 tonnes per annum of mixed rare earth oxides (MREOs), based on material representing approximately 30% of the project’s inferred resource of 110 million tonnes grading 0.5% total rare earth oxides (TREOs). Miningnews digest

Norra Kärr deposit could help make the EU self-sufficient in rare earth metals – study
A key differentiator of the project, said Leading Edge, was its high ratio of the far scarcer heavy rare earths (dysprosium and terbium) to light rare earths (neodymium and praseodymium) contained within the resource. At 2.5 to 1, it means that for every kg of NdPr produced, Norra Kärr is expected to yield 0.4 kg of DyTb. Meanwhile, the average ratio for projects in its peer group is 38.5 to 1, it said.

Based on older and much lower rare earth prices for Dy and Tb, the PEA report gave Norra Kärr a post-tax net present value (at 10% discount) of $762 million, an internal rate of return of 26.3%, and average annual EBITDA of $206 million.

PFS, permitting next
With the mining lease now secured, Leading Edge said it will move the project towards an updated pre-feasibility study (PFS) and enter talks with potential offtake partners and financiers in order to bring Norra Kärr into production.

“With European supply chain resilience now a policy imperative, Leading Edge Materials is on track to develop Europe’s first heavy rare earths mine,” Budge said.

At the same time, the company will also look to advance its environmental permitting process, pledging that it will be “developed to the highest environmental standards, in close dialogue with the local community, including those who remain skeptical of the project.”

The Norra Kärr project previously had its mining concession revoked in 2016 due to environmental concerns, three years after its initial issuance. Since then, Leading Edge has taken steps to address those concerns and reduced the project to a 65% smaller footprint.

https://www.mining.com/sweden-grants-25 ... h-deposit/

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suite de ce post du 16 nov 2025 : viewtopic.php?p=2418400#p2418400

Tactical Resources eyes Nasdaq debut as Texas rare earths project advances

Amanda Stutt | June 29, 2026


The Peak project in Texas. Image: Tactical Resources.

Vancouver-based rare earths developer Tactical Resources is preparing to move its listing to Nasdaq through a SPAC transaction with Plum Acquisition Corp. III as the company advances plans to develop a rare earth processing operation in Texas aimed at supplying the growing U.S. critical minerals supply chain.

Tactical is currently developing the Peak project located southeast of El Paso, Texas, with the aim of becoming the next rare earth elements (REE) producer on American soil. Its flagship project contains the exclusive rights to acquire REE-enriched tailings and stockpiled materials extracted from the Sierra Blanca quarry.

The miner views Peak as one of only a few hard-rock direct-leach-extractable projects in the world, with initial quarry operating permits already in place.

The company controls what it believes is one of the only production-ready rare earth assets in the United States — ~4 million tons of REE-bearing tailings already mined and stockpiled at a quarry site in West Texas, with an agreement in place to acquire the quarry itself.

While most domestic rare earth projects are still a decade out from production, Tactical’s feedstock-first model skips the traditional mine development cycle, with no new mining or permitting required and the company says is positioning to move directly into processing.

Chief executive officer Ranjeet Sundher said the company expects to complete its uplisting in 2026, declining to provide a specific timeline due to regulatory restrictions.

“We’re really a U.S. story,” Sundher told MINING.COM in an interview. “Our project is in Texas, and we believe that a Nasdaq listing will open up many more doors as far as capital and partnerships.”

The company currently trades on the TSX Venture Exchange and OTC markets and plans to delist from both upon completion of the transaction.

Tactical’s flagship project is located near about two miles from USA Rare Earth’s Round Top deposit.

Unlike many rare earth developers focused on delineating resources, Tactical is advancing a project built around processing material already available at an operating quarry.

The site has existing infrastructure, including power, water, rail access and crushing facilities, Sundher said.

For more than two decades, the operation has produced railway ballast, generating stockpiles of material that Tactical believes are enriched in rare earth elements.

According to Sundher, the company recently completed an option to purchase agreement of the underlying quarry operation, which would give it control over the land, mineral rights, equipment and stockpiled material once executed.

“Our tailings purchase and option agreement are now in place,” he said. “We can now work towards repurposing a rock quarry for railway ballast into the next rare earth producer in the US.”

The company estimates there are approximately four million tonnes of tailings available on site, which Sundher said could support the first five years of planned operations while further geological work is undertaken.

Processing-first strategy
Tactical’s development plan differs from many rare earth projects by focusing initially on processing and separation rather than resource expansion.

The company plans to process material through a pilot-scale program to produce rare earth oxides before advancing to separation of individual rare earth elements and securing offtake agreements with downstream customers.

Sundher said the project is particularly focused on heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium, terbium and yttrium, which are critical components in high-performance permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, defense systems, robotics and other advanced technologies.

One of the project’s key advantages, he said, is that the mineralization appears amenable to direct-leach extraction, potentially reducing the number of processing steps required compared with conventional hard-rock rare earth operations.

“We bypass many of the traditional rare earth processing steps,” Sundher said.

The company plans to develop a demonstration processing plant at the site before scaling operations through a modular approach.

Benefiting from policy tailwinds

Tactical’s plans come amid growing US efforts to build domestic supplies of critical minerals and reduce dependence on Chinese processing capacity.

Sundher said federal policy support for domestic critical mineral production has strengthened considerably over the past two years, creating a more favourable environment for projects capable of producing and processing rare earth materials in the United States.

The company is also evaluating opportunities to secure government funding as it advances the project.

“We’re one of the few companies that have materials ready to process,” Sundher said. “One of the reasons we’re pushing so hard on creating materials from our site and demonstrating separation capability is to show that we tick all the boxes.”

With infrastructure already in place and processing studies advancing, Tactical is positioning itself as a potential participant in the emerging US rare earth supply chain at a time when demand for domestically sourced critical minerals is on a steep trajectory.

https://www.mining.com/tactical-resourc ... -advances/