Critical mineral companies Search Minerals and USA Rare Earth have deepened their relationship with a nonbinding memorandum of understanding for an offtake of 500 t/y of neodymium/praseodymium from future production at the Deep Fox and Foxtrot deposits, in Labrador, Canada.
Almost a year ago, Search and USA Rare Earth jointly announced a technical collaboration framework agreement, whereby the two companies would work on several initiatives.
“We have already started a strong technical collaboration with USA Rare Earth and are pleased to deepen our relationship,” comments Search president and CEO Greg Andrews.
Search is aiming to deliver a preliminary economic assessment on the combined Deep Fox and Foxtrot deposits in the first quarter of 2022 and plans to process an 80-t bulk sample material for magnetic demonstration plant testing.
USA Rare Earth is executing a mine-to-magnet strategy of bringing back fully-integrated domestic production of rare earth permanent magnets to the US. Once operational, the plant will initially produce 2 000 t/y of high-performance magnets.
Search has significant resources of neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium at Deep Fox and Foxtrot, which will be complementary to the USA Rare Earth Round Top Mountain critical minerals and heavy rare earths project, in Texas.