Canada's first rare earth producer reported that its first production exceeded expectations

Vital metals began the ore production of the nechalacho project in the northwest in June 2021, becoming the first rare earth producer in Canada. Recently, vital metals reported that its first production exceeded expectations.

According to the report, at the Saskatoon rare earth separation plant in Saskatoon, Canada, the first batch of raw materials from heavy medium separation can be operated for the first time, which is comparable to the Treo grade obtained from laboratory metallurgical tests.

The company is the first rare earth producer in Canada and the second largest rare earth producer in North America, second only to mount pass rare earth mine in California. It is crucial to process the ore from the nechalacho project, which the company began mining in northwest Canada in mid-2021.

The initial capacity of vital's Saskatoon plant is 1000 tons of rare earth oxide (excluding cerium), equivalent to 470 tons of praseodymium and neodymium per year.

The results showed that the DMS plant immersion reached a level equivalent to that seen in the test work. 43.7% of total rare earth oxide (Treo) was obtained from the DMS cyclone separator in sastu, and 44.6% of Treo was obtained under SGS laboratory conditions.

The DMS unit also achieved a recovery rate of 75.2% in the first single operation. It processed about 2300 kg of concentrate mined in the nechalacho rare earth project of vital company, sorted it on site, and then crushed it in the Saskatchewan Research Committee (SRC) plant, which is adjacent to the Saskatchewan plant of vital company and is part of the rare earth center.

Geoff Atkins, managing director of vital metals, said in a media statement: "in the first test, we used low-grade raw materials, and the total rare earth recovery rate reached 75%, which exceeded expectations."

"In the next few months, we still need to do some work to optimize our process, but these preliminary results show incredible potential. This gives us great confidence to carry out future debugging activities through the remaining processes." Atkins said.

"We look forward to continuing our commissioning process to produce 2.5t qualified samples, and then increase production."