Commerce Resources Corp. (TSXV: CCE) has completed its first shipment of a mixed rare earth carbonate concentrate sample to a major global producer of rare earth elements (REEs) for evaluation from its Ashram Deposit in Quebec.
The sample (gram quantities) meets typical market specifications and was produced as part of the company’s ongoing scale-up to larger kilogram quantities.
The sample follows the initial gram quantities of mixed REC sample produced by the company, announced in March 2022. The new sample has a neodymium (Nd) plus praseodymium (Pr) distribution – i.e. % of Nd+Pr oxide of the total rare earth oxide (REO) – of 24.2%, which is significantly higher than that reported by several major global producers, and that of the previous samples produced (21.6% and 22.4% NdPr). Additionally, the mixed REC sample grades 53.9% REO, with 1.0 ppm Th, and <0.1 ppm U.
The company has now produced several bench-scale samples of mixed REC concentrates to market specifications, with NdPr distributions ranging from 21.6% to 24.2%. The strong NdPr distributions that characterise these Ashram samples rank among the highest in the world for non-cerium depleted mixed REC concentrate and exceeds that of several major global producers.
These samples were produced with the company’s conventional flowsheet developed at Hazen Research, CO, in which several process operations have been demonstrated at a continuous pilot-scale level. The company is now undergoing a process scale-up to kilogram quantities of mixed REC concentrate to deliver to additional third-party processors per their request.
The mixed REC sample recently delivered to the third-party producer was produced from the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit using a conventional recovery flowsheet, which results in high grade monazite concentrate exceeding 40% REO. The monazite concentrate was processed through a sulphuric acid pot digestion, to ‘crack’ the monazite, which was then followed by a water leach to liberate the individual REEs into solution at high recovery (98% for NdPr in the sulphuric acid + water leach stage). The thorium was then selectively removed using solvent extraction and the REEs subsequently isolated – also using solvent extraction – and precipitated as a mixed REC concentrate, meeting typical market specifications.
In the rare earth industry, a mixed REC concentrate is typically viewed as the initial marketable product in the REE value chain. A mixed REC is readily saleable as it is the most common feedstock to REE solvent extraction facilities globally, which separate the individual REEs and allow for them to be individually refined into marketable products and disseminated throughout downstream value chains.
About the Ashram Deposit
The Ashram Deposit ranks as one of the largest REE (and fluorspar) deposits globally, consisting of a monazite dominated, single mineralized body outcropping at surface, and has a footprint approximately 600 m along strike, over 300 m across, and 600 m deep, remaining open in several directions. The deposit hosts a measured resource of 1.6 million tonnes (Mt) at 1.77% rare earth oxide (REO) and 3.8% F, an indicated resource of 27.7 Mt at 1.90% REO and 2.9% F, and an inferred resource of 219.8 Mt at 1.88% REO and 2.2% F, at a cut-off grade of 1.25% REO.
