Miners contribute to COVID-19 response
Mining Journal is making some of its most important coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic freely available to readers, Henry Lazenby.
Author: PeterBell
COVID-19 Update: Engineering Progresses while Retrofitting Rare Earth Pilot Plant to Hand Sanitizer Production
“Geomega’s chemical processing team has proven once again its skill to utilize its expertise with evolving market conditions. I am proud of our team that shows flexibility, motivation and creativity, especially during a difficult situation like we see globally today. Geomega can assure its shareholders that these modifications to the pilot plant will in no way impede the progress of building the much larger demonstration plant located in nearby St. Bruno, Quebec. Geomega strives to become Canada’s first rare earth oxide producer, using recycled magnet waste, making Canada one of the few countries outside of Asia to be able to do so. Geomega has continued to advance even under recent difficult social distancing measures and is progressing successfully in the engineering work with Hatch. Upon engineering being completed, ordering the long lead items for the facility will be a priority. Geomega had recently secured project debt financing of $1.72M from the Quebec Government this February (see news release dated February 7, 2020) which has effectively fulfilled the required capital to complete construction of the Demonstration Plant. Geomega, in conjunction with the Quebec Government, has a very clear objective to establish Quebec as a hub for a clean technology and sustainable rare earths refining industry, self reliant and not dependant on other countries for key materials. In light of recent events and supply shortages, as highlighted by reported delays in medical ventilators construction due to lack of permanent magnets (see full article here), this has never been more critical. Geomega looks forward to further engagement with end users and Governments on rare earths recycling and establishing a sustainable supply chain based right here in Quebec, Canada.” Commented Kiril Mugerman, President & CEO of Geomega.
Geomega Extends and Reprices Warrants
Geomega Resources Inc. reports that it has received the TSX Venture Exchange approval to effect an expiry date extension of 4,451,000 share purchase warrants and to also reprice 1,302,778 share purchase warrants.
Rare Earths in Headphones
Check out our posts on social media for an example of recycling rare earths below. The picture shows the magnets from an older pair of headphones compared with newer ones. The old ones are from over 10 years ago and have a ferrite magnet, which is big, bulky, and produces fairly bad sound. The new ones are much better. The red circle marks the NdFeB (Neodymium) magnet in the modern headphones, which weighs about 0.65 grams.
StockPulse Catalyst Clips: Geomega Resources
“We realized that there is this niche opportunity to enter a market where we are processing rare earths — not from a mining concentrate, but from industrial use and end-of-life applications…. Now, we are going to be buying it, processing it, producing rare earths and we will be the first rare earth producer in North America.” Kiril Mugerman
Music Video, PDAC 2020
Lowering the risk when scaling up — that’s my main technological risk. Everybody knows that there is always a risk in scaling-up, but doing it in small steps is a big advantage. The ISR technology has been scaled-up. This is the final iteration of the pilot plant. Proprietary technology, environmentally safe, small footprint, low CAPEX, as I said. Why environmentally safe? Because the recovery of my main reagents is +95%. I don’t have liquid effluent coming out of my plant. It’s very important because I’ll show you where I’m developing my plant. Then, iron oxide — 70% of this is magnet is iron. When they recycle those magnets in China, usually the iron goes together with their waste hydrochloric acid into the tailings facility. Basically, it’s a red mud issue. We don’t want to be dealing with red muds, especially where I am outside Montreal.
GEOMEGA at PDAC 2020
The permanent magnet market — it was 160 thousand tonnes in 2018. Today, it’s closer towards two hundred thousand tonnes. That market is growing. Every single magnet that has to be made produces 15-30% waste by weight. That’s a lot of magnet to be recycled. We are starting with the first plant of approximately $10M ten million dollars in sales and growing to full capacity within the plant, then probably looking to add a second plant as soon as possible close to magnet manufacturers. Most of them are in Asia, but you’re seeing more and more interest of some of those manufacturers to come to Europe and North America. That magnet sector today is generating $1.2 billion dollars annually. It’s expected to grow to $1.8 billion dollars. That’s a lot of money and it’s a sector that we want to take a big chunk out of. We think we can generate a lot of revenues and that’s why we think it’s a very good opportunity to invest in GEOMEGA today.
Geomega and Jobmaster Magnet Canada Inc. Enter into an Agreement for Rare Earth Magnet Recycling
“We are very excited to work together with Jobmaster Magnets on setting an example and becoming a leader in magnet collection and recycling. Jobmaster Magnets is one of the largest and oldest Canadian magnet suppliers with over 35 years’ experience in the industry. They serve various industries including the automotive and manufacturing sectors, both major users of magnets. Jobmaster Magnets’ clients, in Canada and abroad, will be able to benefit from having their magnets recycled in a clean and sustainable way right here in Canada while preserving this critical resource from going to the land fills. As outlined in the U.S. Federal Government open funding opportunity for REE separation and processing project that Geomega is applying for, recycled feedstocks are being considered as a potential source. This first collaboration agreement is a step forward to establish a rare earth magnet recycling industry in North America to produce a consistent, reliable and sustainable supply of the required magnet focused rare earths (Nd, Pr, Dy, Tb) for future government and commercial needs.” commented Kiril Mugerman, President & CEO of Geomega.
Daybreak Montreal with Mike Finnerty
A new recycling plant is set to open on the South Shore, in St Bruno. It will be recycling magnets in order to re-use their precious rare earth metals. Kiril Mugerman is the president and CEO of Resources GeoMega — the company behind the plant.
“Tokyo aims to reduce China dependency to 50% or less” Nikkei
“Japan will conduct the financing through a government-owned resource investment company: the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp., or Jogmec. Legislation will be revised to allow it to take stakes in rare-earths smelting projects. Processing facilities, which have a large environmental impact, are now primarily concentrated in China. And Beijing has employed its dominance in rare earths to exert pressure before. In 2010, it quietly cut exports to Japan amid a dust-up over a territorial issue. Jogmec will also take steps to ensure Japan’s stable access to cobalt, a mineral used in lithium-ion batteries, to counter Chinese enterprises securing rights in Congo. The resource company could spend up to around 20 billion yen ($182 million) in all on both efforts.”
GeoMegA tweets article on wind turbines
“The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has released open-access designs of the International Energy Agency (IEA) 15MW reference offshore wind turbine.” Is this an example of broader collaborations on new technology?
@GITI_SG on Twitter Describing Strengths of Geomega
Strengths of Geomega as per @GITI_SG on twitter,
“It is environmentally benign recycling, not messy mining. The project is feasible at current rare earths prices. No use and disposal of ten thousands of tons of acids for processing, but in-house recovery of >90% of recycling agents used. Geomega turns out only the hot items among the rare earths. This project helps alleviate the rare earths inherent imbalance of by-products, i.e. hard rock mining (massively) overproduces 9 rare earths products in order to meet demand of 5 hot rare earths products. 4 of the 5 hot rare earths products plus cobalt will be produced by Geomega through recycling. Geomega’s know-how is proprietary, not licensed from China. Different from other western recycling companies, who try to pry out grams of rare earths from consumer electronics at hugely disproportionate cost, Geomega will recycle industrial magnets in larger quantities and can therefore offer China-competitive prices.”
InvestmentPitch Media reports on GeoMega Debt Financing
Quebec-based GeoMegA Resources has developed a proprietary, environmentally-friendly ISR technology that recycles rare earth elements using magnet residue and recycled magnets as the main source of feed. The company intends to process feed from magnet manufacturers, alloy makers, and recyclers across Europe and the US at it’s Canadian facility. The company uses organic, solvent-free proprietary technology to isolate and purify four high demand, high priced rare earth elements, which represents an estimated 30% of annual global demand for rare earth elements and 80% of the total market value.
“Canada’s Quebec backs Geomega Resources rare earth recycling project” Jeff Lewis, Reuters
“Canada’s Quebec backs Geomega Resources rare earth recycling project” Jeff Lewis, Reuters. Funds to be used for the rare earth magnet recycling demonstration plant in St-Bruno-de-Montarville, Quebec
Robert McWhirter discusses Geomega Resources
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Geomega secures project debt financing of $1.72M from the Quebec Government
“We are very grateful for the support we received from the Government of Québec. With this debt financing from IQ and MEI we have effectively completed our main project financing initiatives…” commented Kiril Mugerman, President & CEO of Geomega.
A first rare earth plant outside Asia, Le Journal de Montreal
“The first rare earth magnet recycling plant outside Asia will be launched in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, on the South Shore, by the end of the year, announced Friday Géomega resources.”
CAMBRIDGE HOUSE
Why are we doing all this? It’s the circular economy principle. Once we are doing this recycling, it closes the production cycle as Europe and North America are trying to do right now. I’ll finish by saying that rare earth prices are low, but that’s what drives demand and demand is positive for innovation and recycling. That’s where we are today in the rare earth cycle. Low capex, low opex, small footprint, clean process, and cash flow — these are the objectives of the company in the near future. Thank you very much.
Geomega adds Hatch to its Engineering team for the rare earth magnet recycling demonstration plant in St-Bruno, Quebec
“We are extremely pleased to have attracted an engineering group of Hatch caliber to work on the next stage of engineering together with Geomega’s team. Hatch has taken part in some of the most complex recent mining and processing projects in Canada and globally and is well suited to bring Geomega its technical and project delivery expertise to this demonstration plant project. With a strong engineering partner, government support and significant interest in the rare earth sector today globally, we are very excited to develop the first rare earths magnet recycling facility outside of Asia right here in Quebec, Canada. Other major milestones will be announced in the near future as we put forward our strategy to develop the rare earths magnet recycling facility in St Bruno, Quebec.” commented Kiril Mugerman, President & CEO of Geomega.
Swarf from permanet magnets, Robert Baylis & Adamas Intelligence tweets
” don’t forget about swarf,” Adam Baylis, January 22nd 2020.
To close the loop in the circular economy, as they call it, you do need to recycle. Funny enough, they do recycle in China. They do recycle rare earth magnets in China and they are basically the leader in that. Nobody talks about it.”
Transcript: Kiril Mugerman with Proactive at VRIC2020
Kiril Mugerman: We are recycling those magnets. When we receive them, what happens is that we crush them if we receive them as solids. Sometimes we receive them as powders already, which is crushed material. Then it goes into a reactor where a process happens. It’s a sequence of three reactors where basically a process goes from one to the next one to the next one and we get our final product. The closer it goes towards the end of the process, the more similar to a traditional process. The first stages are very different and innovative, and do not produce the same waste that are produced in traditional technologies today.
“The sooner we produce oxides in North America, the faster we will attract companies capable of making alloys,” Kiril Mugerman
However, Quebec and Canada are light years away from having an integrated industry, says Kiril Mugerman, president and chief executive officer of Ressources Géoméga, an SME from Boucherville that owns the Montviel rare earth deposit. , in the Nord-du-Québec region.
“The sooner we produce oxides in North America, the faster we will attract companies capable of making alloys,” he insists.
Kiril Mugerman with Proactive Investors at VRIC 2020
Thanks to Proactive Investors for this interview with our CEO Kiril Mugerman at the Cambridge House VRIC 2020 conference.
GCFF Fact Sheet
Innord是当地一家环保创新型的稀土元素回收和精炼企业，由Geomega全资拥有，专注于对“ISR”技术进行推广
Geomega owns 100% Innord, the innovation arm focused on scaling up “ISR”, a local, environmentally friendly REE recycling and refining technology
