With support from the Government of Saskatchewan,the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) is constructing Canada’s first fully integrated, commercial demonstration Rare Earth Processing Facility, which is positioned to establish a rare earth element (REE) technology hub in Saskatchewan, forming an industry model for future commercial REE initiatives and supply chain development.

SRC’s facility will require up to 3,000 tonnes per year of monazite concentrate on a minimum 80 per cent basis. The first stage of the Facility, aMonazite Processing Unit, will produce total rare earth oxides. This will then be fed the second stage, a Separation Unit, that will produce lanthanum/cerium, a neodymium/ praseodymium mixture and a medium/heavy rare earth mixture containing terbium/ dysprosium. The separated neodymium/ praseodymium will be further processed in a third stage, a Metal Smelting Unit,to produce didymium metals, which will be available to market from 2024.

In Addition, Saskatchewan is positioned to expand the current SRC Rare Earth Processing Facility to produce ~1,000 tonnes per year of permanent magnets. This production is sufficient to manufacture 500,000 electric vehicles per year. SRC’s proposed vertically integrated minerals-to-magnetsfacility would be operational starting in 2028.