Brazil-focused Rare Earths Company Aims to Take on China

Mining Weekly reported that Andreas Sprecher, CEO of Mining Ventures Brazil Ltda., the parent company of privately held Mineração Serra Verde, believes that Mineração’s low-grade, Brazil-based rare earths project could be a good source of rare earths outside of China.

Sprecher told the news outlet:

Our project is analogous to many southern Chinese projects, providing for simple, well-understood metallurgy, and a low capital intensity that would contribute to maintaining price stability in the rare earths market, no matter what China decides to do with its output.

As quoted in the market news:

Sprecher notes that the MCV project’s ionic clay geology allows for the mineralisation to be freely liberated, and provides for cheaper, simpler processing and lower capital expenditures than some of its peers.

Further, he notes that high-value rare earths represented more than 60% of the resource, selling at a significant premium to light rare earths. The mineralisation allows the ore to be simply leached with low-cost reagents to precipitate a rare-earth concentrate, decreasing capital  and operating costs, while following rigorous environmental standards.

The fully liberated rare-earth mineralisation would allow for simple truck-and-shovel openpit mining, and the project is located near to existing water, power and transport infrastructure.

Click here to read the full Mining Weekly report.