Sites under review for UK rare earth production

Pensana Rare Earths has appointed Wood Group to study the potential for establishing a rare earth oxide production facility in the UK.

Pensana is developing the Longonjo rare earths project in Angola and the projected production from Longonjo, combined with a processing facility in the UK, would the company say, be enough to supply the wind turbines at Dogger Bank for the next two decades.

By linking a mid-stream magnet metal supply with downstream magnet manufacturing capacity there is the potential to create a sustainable magnet metal supply chain at a time of increasing concern over the provenance of these critical metals for the electric vehicle and Offshore Wind Turbine industries.

Three potential sites are under review for the facility at Merseyside, Humber and the Tees Valley.

Pilot plant work on mineralisation from Longonjo has provided extensive operational and engineering design information and production cost data. The pilot plant has also produced concentrate for use in the next stage carbonate process work.