TRER Claims New Progress in Lab Research
Texas Rare Earth Resources announced last week that it had made new strides in concentrating rare earth elements from Round Top Mountain ore. Company officials said the lab results confirm that TRER is “the premier heavy rare earth project, not only in North America, but in the world.”
TRER disclosed the results in a Feb. 4 press release. The release said that, in December, lab research demonstrated that the company could produce a “purified solution” of rare earths from acid-leached Round Top ore.
Since August 2014, TRER has been working with a Florida-based company called K-Tech to establish a process for concentrating rare earths from Round Top ore. TRER officials said “Stage 1” of that hydrometallurgical research was complete, and that stages 2 and 3 would demonstrate the company’s ability to produce 99.99-percent-pure streams of individual rare earth metals.
“The objective of these next two stages is to produce gram sized samples of 4-9s (99.99 percent), separated rare earth oxides or carbonate from leached Round Top rhyolite,” Dan Gorski, TRER’s CEO, said in the release. “We believe the completion of these two stages would establish TRER as a leader in becoming the first non-Chinese source of the strategically vital heavy rare earth elements. Our target is to complete stages 2 and 3 within six months and to then scale up and move directly on to the pilot plant stage of development.”
TRER is seeking investment to pursue a rare-earth mining operation at Round Top Mountain, 10 miles west of Sierra Blanca. The company plans to mine ore from the 5,600-foot mountain – and to crush the ore and “leach it” in sulfuric acid on site.
The leaching would isolate heavy metals called rare earth elements, which are used a wide range of military, consumer-electronic and alternative-energy technologies. At present, almost all of the world’s rare earths are produced in China.
Rare earths are spread in low concentrations throughout the volcanic rock that comprises Round Top Mountain. Some critics of TRER’s plan have said that the low concentration means the project is not viable. In an interview with the website Investorintel, TRER Chairman Anthony Marchese said the successful lab work demonstrates that the company can produce concentrated rare earths affordably, despite the low-grade nature of the Round Top deposit.
“In fact, the Chinese clay deposits of which most of the world or all of the world’s rare earths come from actually come from are at a grade equal to or lower than TRER’s,” Marchese said. “It’s all about net profit – it’s not about revenue or expense. It’s about, can you process at a cost less than you can sell it?”