New metal in town: pele Mountain to process monazite for rare earths.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay

Al Shefsky is in a race to bring rare earth mineral production to Northern Ontario. If he can get his new project processing monazite off the ground, it may move him closer to the finish line.

Shefsky, president and CEO of Pele Mountain Resources, plans to ship monazite from overseas mineral sand-mining operations to a processing plant in Elliot Lake to extract rare earths for use in the global market. "I think we have a lot of advantages, and by adopting this approach, by expanding our business model to include recycling monazite, I believe we have a chance of winning that race," Shefsky said. "It really is all about trying to get to market as early as possible."

Rare earth metals comprise a group of 17 chemical elements that are prized for their use in the manufacture of high-tech products: everything from smartphones and hybrid car batteries to nuclear reactors and defence applications.

China produces more than 99 per cent of the global supply of rare earths. The California-based Mountain Pass open-pit mine, operated by Molycorp, is the sole North American producer of rare earth minerals, and it only produces what are considered "light" rare earths.

The supply of critical rare earths--those with the highest risk of supply disruption, including neodymium and praseodymium--remains with China, Shefsky said. "Those are the two magnet materials and the demand for those is growing rapidly," Shefsky said. "So there's" a need for a secure supply outside of China and that's what producing this monazite in Elliot Lake will provide."

Pele Mountain is working on securing agreements with multiple sources outside Canada. For confidentiality reasons Shefsky wouldn't name those sources, but he wants to move rapidly to get those agreements in place. "We do intend to have two or three suppliers from countries that embrace sustainable mining practices and who are allied training partners with Canada," Shefsky said. "So the whole idea here is to enhance the security of supply and basically get the entire supply chain outside of China."

Before he set his sights on monazite, Shefsky was working on the development of the Eco Ridge Mine in Elliot Lake, a proposed hard-rock underground mining operation that would extract and process rare earth minerals with...