Commerce Resources Produces High-Grade Rare Earth Mineral Concentrate (36% REO) at Strong Recovery in Flotation Locked-Cycle Testing
Press Release
Highlights:
- Locked-cycle testing of the Ashram Deposit’s flotation-only flowsheet has resulted in high-grade rare earth mineral concentrate at strong recovery.
- 36 to 37% REO1 at overall recoveries of 65 to 68%.
- Mineral concentrate grades compare favourably to historical and current hard rock global rare earth producers, of which 30% REO is the typical lowest grade concentrate produced.
- Results will be incorporated into a pending Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit on schedule for Q2-2025.
- Variability testing and pilot plant testing scheduled for the first half of 2025 as next steps.
- Fluorite recovery from rare earth flotation tailings to be evaluated.
Ross Carroll, President and CEO of Commerce, comments: “The results of the locked-cycle tests confirm the robustness of the simplified, flotation-only, continuous recovery process for the Ashram Deposit. The strong recoveries will ensure we maximize returns from the high-value in-situ mineralization, and the high-grade mineral concentrate produced will reduce the scale of the downstream processing resulting in lower capital and operating expense. We are thrilled with these outcomes and are grateful for the innovative attention to maximizing the potential of one of the world’s largest rare earth resources by the technical team, many of whom have remained engaged with advancing the Project since its discovery over a decade ago.”
- Rare Earth Oxide (“REO”) includes the sum of the lanthanides plus yttrium.
November 14, 2024 – Commerce Resources Corp. (TSXv: CCE, FSE: D7H0, OTCQX: CMRZF) (the “Company” or “Commerce”) is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed flotation locked-cycle testing on whole rock material from the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit (the “Ashram Deposit”). The Ashram Deposit is located central to the Eldor Property, is unencumbered (royalty free), is wholly owned by the Company, and one of the largest undeveloped rare earth deposits in the world.
The locked-cycle test (“LCT”) program was completed on the Ashram Deposit’s simplified flotation-only beneficiation flowsheet (see news release dated March 4, 2024) and has demonstrated improved grade and recovery compared to the prior bench-scale test program. Monazite dominate rare earth mineral concentrates grading 35.8 to 36.8% REO at 65 to 68% overall recovery were achieved through the LCT test work on the flotation-only beneficiation flowsheet. The locked-cycle test was carried out by SGS Canada at their Lakefield, ON, facility and utilized bulk sample material (~2.1% REO head grade) collected from an outcrop of the Ashram Deposit.
A locked-cycle test is an iterative laboratory-scale batch flotation test which recycles the tailings material between flotation stages to best simulate a continuous closed-circuit operating process plant. The test evaluates the influence of re-circulation on flotation recovery and is a laboratory test which provides more relevant data of anticipated commercial operation performance compared to a bench-scale test. The locked-cycle test also provides insight on potential buildup of reagents within a circuit and optimizes reagent dose rates. The locked-cycle test on Ashram whole rock was performed with nine (9) cycles using 1 kg of feed material stage-ground to 80% passing 25 μm (Figure 1, Figure 2, and Figure 3).
The LCT results (i.e., the high-grades of rare earth mineral concentrate) will be incorporated into a pending updated Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) on the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit, which remains on schedule for Q2-2025. The historical PEA completed in 2012 was based on a rare earth mineral concentrate grade of only 10% REO. Therefore, the simplified flotation-only flowsheet with more than triple the mineral concentrate grade is anticipated to have a significant positive impact on the pending PEA update.
A higher-grade mineral concentrate has the benefit of resulting in a smaller downstream hydromet plant size, smaller footprint, reduced reagent consumption, reduced shipping requirements, simpler logistics, and reduced overall technical and project risk. Further, Ashram’s flotation-only mineral processing flowsheet will permit an operator to leverage the size of the deposit and optimize mining for effective recovery into a high-grade monazite dominant concentrate in order to significantly simplify and thereby reduce Project mineral processing and downstream hydromet capital and operating expenditures.
Variability testing and pilot plant testing is scheduled for the first half of 2025 as next steps. Additionally, following the positive LCT results, which further confirm the robustness of the flotation-only beneficiation flowsheet, the Company has initiated a program to evaluate fluorite recovery from the rare earth mineral concentrate tailings. Fluorspar (or fluorine) is recognized as a critical/strategic mineral by Canada, Europe, Japan, and the United States, and is also a key input into lithium-ion batteries.
Figure 1: The flotation locked-cycle test flowsheet. Each cycle consisted of a rougher flotation stage, three (3) cleaner flotation stages, and a 1st cleaner-scavenger stage. The three streams shown in red were recirculated from one cycle to the next (e.g. the 3rd cleaner concentrate from cycle A was fed to the 2nd cleaner of Cycle B).
Figure 2: Flotation of Ashram whole rock sample material in a 2-litre Denver cell.
Figure 3: Combined final locked-cycle test high-grade (>35% REO) rare earth flotation mineral concentrate
NI 43-101 Disclosure
Jordan Zampini, P.Eng., Process Manager – Montreal for DRA Americas Inc., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information, and verified the data, contained in this news release.
About The Ashram Deposit
The Ashram Deposit ranks as one of the largest REE deposits globally, consisting of a monazite-dominated, single mineralized body outcropping at surface, and has a footprint approximately 700 m along strike, over 300 m across, and 600 m deep, remaining open in several directions. Therefore, the deposit is envisioned to be an open-pit extraction operation at production, with a very low strip ratio. Coupled with a monazite rare earth mineralogy and strong NdPr distributions (>20%), these attributes allow for flexibility in flowsheet design, whereby a 60+% overall recovery of the NdPr into saleable product is significant.
About Commerce Resources Corp.
Commerce Resources Corp. is a junior mineral resource company focused on the development of the Ashram Rare Earth and Fluorspar Deposit located within their Eldor Property, in northern Quebec, Canada. The Ashram Deposit is characterized by simple rare earth (monazite, bastnaesite, xenotime) and gangue (carbonates) mineralogy, a large tonnage resource at favourable grade, and has demonstrated the production of high-grade (more than 30 – 45% TREO) mineral concentrates at high recovery (more than 60 – 75%) in line with active global producers. The Ashram Deposit also has a fluorspar component which makes it one of the largest potential sources of fluorspar in the world and could be a long-term supplier to the met-spar and acid-spar markets. The Company is positioning to be one of the lowest cost rare earth producers globally, with a specific focus on being a long-term supplier of mixed rare earth carbonate and/or NdPr oxide to the global market. Additionally, Commerce is committed to exploring the potential of other high-value commodities on the Property such as niobium and phosphate minerals, which may help advance Ashram by reducing costs through shared development.
For more information, please visit the corporate website at www.commerceresources.com or email info@commerceresources.com.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors
COMMERCE RESOURCES CORP.
“Ross Carroll”
Ross Carroll
CEO and President
Tel: 604.484.2700
Email: rcarroll@commerceresources.com
Web: http://www.commerceresources.com
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