CEO Al Shefsky announced that it was a challenge to raise the kind of capital to develop a hard-rock mining operation so we started to look to see if there were other opportunities to kick start a rare-earth supply chain, noting that the Eco Ridge deposit also contains significant amounts of rare earth elements. There are more than 3 pounds of rare earths for every pound of uranium at Eco Ridge. And Elliot Lake is the only place in Canada where rare earths were produced historically. We have been very fortunate and have had lots of support from all levels of government for building early-to-market critical rare-earth production in the Elliot Lake area.
When Pele Mountain Resources announced a new strategy in October, 2014 to extract and separate rare-earth elements from monazite concentrate imported from overseas at its Eco Ridge project in Elliott Lake, the plan caught many by surprise. But president and CEO Al Shefsky has wasted little time showing he means business. In December, Shefsky presented the concept to the Elliot Lake City Council, which endorsed the idea, and along with Mayor Dan Marchisella passed a unanimous resolution to issue a letter of support for the development of the Pele monazite processing strategy.
The community at Elliot Lake, built in the 1950s during uranium mining in the district, saw its last operating mine shut down in 1997. The strategy gained further traction this week when the company signed a memorandum of understanding with one of the largest rare earths producers in China to set up a joint-venture processing facility in northern Ontario. Pele Mountain has even secured a letter of financing.
Original URL: http://www.northernminer.com/news/pele-mountain-moves-monazite-processing-plan-ahead-with-chinese-mou/1003554147/?er=NA
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