Australian rare earth developer Lindian Resources has signed a technical and engineering services agreement and a binding 10-year purchase commitment agreement with French rare earth processing company Carester to obtain supplies from its Summit Atom rare earth (Sareco) plant in Stupnogorsk, Kazakhstan.
Lindian stated on September 3rd that according to the technical agreement, Carester will complete the final feasibility study for an 8,000-tonne/year rare earth oxide (REO) separation facility by December. This facility will be located at the same site as Sareco.
The 10-year purchase commitment agreement will cover 70% supply of samarium-europium-gadolinium mixed rare earth compounds and grant Carester a 70% priority option for the rich dysprosium-tetramerium mixed heavy rare earth carbonate (MHREC) at Sareco. The agreement will have the option for two five-year extensions. Carester will transport the heavy rare earth products to its Caremag refining plant located in Lac, France.
This agreement is part of Lindian's plan to process light and heavy rare earths at Sareco. In March this year, after acquiring 51% of Sareco's shares, Lindian fully acquired Sareco from its former owners, Kazakhstan's state-owned uranium producer Kazatomprom and Japanese enterprise group Sumitomo. The company's goal is to re-activate the refinery by October-December, but the capacity for mixed carbonate rare earths (MREC) production has not been specified yet.
Heavy rare earths
The agreement will help Lindian increase its production share of heavy rare earths such as terbium, dysprosium, and yttrium, while strengthening its supply of light rare earths from the Kangankunde project in Malawi. Since the end of February, the landed price of European oxide terbium has risen by 33% to $5,300 per kilogram, while the landed price of oxide neodymium has dropped by 32% to $121 per kilogram.
However, Lindian still needs to conduct tests to confirm whether Sareco's facilities are suitable for heavy rare earth processing.
Lindian uses the Aktau inventory as the raw material for Sareco's processing of heavy rare earths. This inventory belongs to the former owner of Sareco. The company has obtained 13,389 tonnes of raw materials under an access and option agreement and has 12 months to exercise the option to obtain an additional 15,000-20,000 tonnes from the inventory. These inventories are already connected by railway to Sareco.
Light rare earths
Lindian already has a confirmed production process for extracting light rare earths using sulfuric acid at the Sareco project in East Africa's Malawi.
The company's wholly-owned Kangankunde project in Malawi is rich in neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) and will start producing 20,000 tonnes/year of total rare earth oxide (TREO) monazite concentrate in November. The company is conducting a second-phase feasibility study to expand Kangankunde to 120,000 tonnes/year and is expected to complete it in December.
Lindian will send 12,500 tonnes/year of monazite concentrate from Kangankunde to Sareco for processing into 48.6% pure mixed carbonate rare earth.
The company has also signed a 15-year purchase commitment agreement to supply 6,000 tonnes/year of monazite concentrate to the Iluka Resources' Eneabba refinery in the plan, which is expected to produce 23,000 tonnes/year of separated rare earth oxides by mid-2027.
In June this year, Lindian terminated the 2023 purchase agreement with the US trading company Gerald Metals.
