Quest Rare Minerals Releases Q3 Financials, Updates on Pilot Plant Progress

Quest Rare Minerals (TSX:QRM) reported financial results for the quarter ended July 31 2015 and provided an update on progress at its pilot plant.
As quoted in the press release:

Quest is focussed on the piloting and converting of rare earth-containing ore into a high purity mixed rare earth oxide. Quest’s staged development from bench scale to mini-plant to full piloting of its eco-friendly selective thermal sulphation process (STS) has been designed and is being executed in a rigorous manner to ensure Quest has a detailed, accurate and complete determination of all critical process parameters.

Providing an overview of the project, the release also stated:

Piloting encompasses the key process steps including beneficiation, selective thermal sulphation and hydromet solution treatment.

• Flotation optimization program: Completed. Further optimization of the flotation circuit, achieved a mass pull to concentrate to about 20% of the ore with improved rare earth oxide recoveries of approximately 80%. This increase in process efficiency represents a 57% reduction in average mineral concentrate production to about 250,000 dry metric tons (mt) from the 578,000 dry mt reported in the June 2014 PEA.
• Full flotation piloting: This phase will be performed by COREM, an industrial research centre in Québec. Planned completion is scheduled for the end of 2015.
• Full piloting of sensor-based ore sorting (XRT, radiometric, photometric): 10 dry mt of representative ore sample from Quest’s Strange Lake property in Québec will be shipped to the TOMRA test centre in Wedel, Germany in the Fall of 2015 for sensor ore sorting. Prior small-scale ore sorting tests indicated potential reduction in the volume of material needed to be milled, with a corresponding reduction in the consumption of reagents in the flotation process.
• Selective Thermal Sulphation: The STS process has been successfully tested on a mini-pilot scale at SGS Mineral Services in Lakefield, Ontario. Results demonstrated that this STS process greatly reduces acid consumption and dramatically improves the quality of the leach solution, leading to reduced operating costs and allowing for a simplified solution treatment process flowsheet. A full pilot of the STS process is planned for early 2016.
• Recycled phosphor powder testing: At both the bench scale and the mini-pilot scale, Quest tested a STS process feedstock composed of recycled mercury-free phosphor powder from fluorescent lamps as feedstock mixed with the flotation concentrate going into the STS process. Quest’s process successfully recovered the rare earths in the mercury-free phosphor powder without any pre-processing steps. Further testing is planned at the full piloting stage, and the Company is confident that it will be able use this material as feedstock (at a 3-5% mix with the flotation concentrate).

Click here for the full press release.