Medallion Resources making great strides with proprietary process to extract rare earths from mineral sand monazite

Medallion's technology will help meet increasing critical raw material demands Monazite contains up to 60% rare earth minerals and is consistently enriched in neodymium and praseodymium It is widely available as a by-product from operating North American, Australian and African mines What Medallion Resources does: Medallion Resources Ltd (CVE:MDL) (OTCMKTS:MLLOF) is focused on extracting rare earths from monazite, an abundant byproduct of heavy mineral sands mining, and has developed a proprietary technology to do so. The Vancouver-based company is pioneering a process that extracts what is known as magnet metals, or more specifically neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr). These are the essential ingredient in lightweight and powerful rare earth magnets, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) motors and in wind/ solar technology. The value of the global annual NdPr oxide market was US$4.2 billion in 2019 and industry analysts estimate an increase in demand to US$12.7 billion by 2030 - a compound annual growth rate of 13%. Recently, UBS forecast average NdPr prices to stand at US$60 per kilogramme for 2021, although spot is higher, while the prices should move to around US$100 per kilogramme in 2024, it says. The Medallion monazite process extracts the high-value metals and produces marketable product from over 90% of the feed. Significantly, rare earth prices are rising, alongside raw materials for lithium-ion batteries. Electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid vehicles are forecast to make up 40% of new market share by 2030. Medallion's management have marked experience. Its CEO and president is experienced rare earth and critical materials executive Mark Saxon, who led the company in the discovery of the Norra Karr project in Sweden. China has dominated the production and value-add stages of the rare earths industry for the last three decades as US and European manufacturing industries traded supply security for low prices. The People's Republic currently controls around 85% of global rare-earth production. But Medallion notes that rare earths have now been repeatedly identified as critical raw materials in both the USA and the European Union. The company has a market cap of around C$30 million and its shares have risen by around 440% over the last 12 months. How is it doing: In November last year, Medallion announced that it had hired Australian consultants Simulus Engineers to complete a techno-economic assessment (TEA) - like a feasibility study - on its extraction process. The study will combine results from previous testing, process simulation and trade-off studies that Medallion has compiled over the years. The findings of the study are expected to be revealed in the first quarter of 2021. On February 18 this year, in what the group called a "pivotal" moment, Medallion acquired the licence for the exclusive rights to a university-developed rare earth element (REE) separation process. The license, acquired through Hasler Ventures, provides Medallion with a portfolio of technology, patents, and knowhow for so-called ligand-assisted displacement (LAD) chromatography technique, developed by Dr Linda Wang, PhD, a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, which was ranked the fifth most innovative university in the USA by US News & World Report. Dan Hasler, the founder of Hasler Ventures, will join Medallion’s advisory board and represent Medallion Resources in sub-licensing and partnership opportunities. On March 9, Medallion said that since January 1 this year, it had received gross proceeds of around $792,000 from the exercise of around 4.25 million warrants and options putting it in a “strong position” with over C$2 million of working capital and research and engineering programs underway on both the extraction and the separation of rare-earth elements. Inflection points: Release of techno-economic assessment results for its proposed US rare earth extraction plant Rare earth price moves Partnership/ research activity What the boss says: In February this year, following the Purdue University licence news, Medallion CEO Mark Saxon spoke to Proactive's Andrew Scott about what he called a "game-changer" for the company. "We've been focused until now on what we're calling the extraction phase of processing and the new investment for us is a shift-across into rare earth separation as well, so I guess in particular we add that onto our own process but we've got the opportunity to take that further afield and look at supporting other companies as well with rare earth separation," he said. Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com