$6M PrairiesCan investment keeps Saskatchewan Research Council’s Rare Earth Processing Facility on track for commercial production later this year

The Saskatchewan Research Council’s Rare Earth Processing Facility last week received $6 million in funding from the federal government to help advance its efforts to begin commercial-scale processing of rare earth materials later this year.

First announced in 2020, the Saskatoon facility has developed a process to separate unrecovered rare earth oxides from radioactive monazite tailings. According to the press release announcing the latest funds, the plant will produce enough additional rare earths — from a waste product that would have otherwise been disposed of — to manufacture up to 65,000 electric vehicles per year.

The new money, from Prairies Economic Development Canada, will also help to develop an automated metal smelting process to produce commercial grade rare earth element (REE) metals.

Improved processes, greater speed and safety

The facility — initially launched at a cost of $55 million — will be able to take in 3,000 tonnes of monazite annually and supply an estimated 400 tonnes of rare earth metals each year.

However, EVs would not be the only market for the metals.

“This funding will allow SRC to optimize two important processes in the rare earth supply chain, producing more REE and at the same time doing it quicker, safer and with less demand on manual labour,” SRC president and CEO Mike Crabtree said in a statement.

Previously, PrairiesCan provided $2.5 million in interest-free repayable funding to the SRC to buy equipment for the plant. Last month, the plant also received nearly $5 million from Natural Resources Canada through the Critical Minerals Research, Development and Demonstration program.

Along with its commercialization efforts, the facility is also a research centre. It employs what Crabtree called a “research through commercialization” approach in an interview with Electric Autonomy last year.

Provincial and national hub

Its goal is to foster creation of a rare earth industry hub in Saskatchewan, and Canada, by developing new processes, de-risking the technology and laying the foundations of a commercial market. It is the first of its kind in Canada and one of only two or three such facilities in all of North America.

The province’s ambitions did hit a speed bump last fall when Australian company Vital Metals canceled plans for its own rare processing facility in Saskatoon. The company put its Canadian subsidiary, Vital Metals Canada Ltd., into receivership two years after first announcing the facility.

The reason given was a lack of economic sense. Initially estimated at a $20 million cost, by the time of receivership that had grown to nearly $60 million, with $18 million already spent.

Through another subsidiary, Cheetah Resources, Vital is continuing its efforts to develop a rare earth deposit in the Northwest Territories.

The setback had no impact on the SRC facility, however.

In April 2023, when Vital’s struggles became public knowledge, it put out a statement emphasizing that SRC’s project was not connected “in any way” with the private endeavour, adding in part: “The REE facility has been designed to be vertically integrated specifically to withstand short- and medium-term market volatility.”

A year later, it remains on track.