Orbite Aluminae (ORT-T) has been busy proving its patented technology to extract alumina from clays, bauxite, and red mud works. It now says it’s capable of recovering individual rare earths as a byproduct from its high-purity alumina (HPA) plant in Cap-Chat, Que., as early as 2013.
On June 28, the Montreal-based junior said it retained CMI Chemline to complete the regeneration phase for high-purity hydrochloric acid produced at the HPA plant to separate rare earth elements such as dysprosium, erbium and yttrium, but also rare metals such as scandium and gallium.
In an interview the day before, Orbite’s president and CEO Richard Boudreault said the company previously planned use the acid regeneration process to recover rare earths only at its proposed smelter grade alumina (SGA) plant, slated to start up in 2014. But given the recent tests showing positive extraction rates for rare earths, Orbite will now replicate a portion of its contemplated SGA plant at its HPA plant, which is under construction.
On June 26, Orbite said it has recovered the first commercial sample of individual rare-earths from its aluminous clay at the Grande-Vallee property in Quebec.
That’s an important milestone, M Partners’ analyst Marc Johnson commented in an email. “Since not only is the successful extraction of individual rare-earths and in particular of scandium from the shale clays a first in North America, it also demonstrates that once captured (dissolved) within the circuit, the rare-earth byproducts can be recovered with little to no loss to tailings.”
Orbite says it’s the only company in North America equipped with a viable technology to remediate Bayer process residues and to recover and separate heavy rare earth oxides and rare metal oxides.
Orbite recently reported a recovery rate of 93.9% for gallium, 93.1% for scandium and 87.5% for yttrium at an independent pilot plant in Germany. Two third parties, including European group CMI-UVK and German firm MEAB, confirmed extraction rates for certain rare earth and metal oxides at over 93%.
This is a plus for the project’s economics given the preliminary economic assessment (PEA) assumed a rare-earth/metal extraction rate of 70%.
“It was never a matter of would there be a 70% rare-earth recovery rate, either the process works or it doesn’t,” Johnson writes. “It’s clear now that it works very well and will have a significant positive impact on the economics.”
Orbite intends to start building the SGA production plant next year, with start-up scheduled for 2014.
The plant is projected to produce 540,000 tons of SGA per year and 1,097 annual tons of rare earths and metals at an estimated 85% recovery rate, including more than 60 tonnes of scandium oxide a year.
Scandium is a critical byproduct for Orbite, says Johnson, because it contributes the most to rare earth revenues and is complementary to alumina. Aluminum alloyed with scandium is used in a variety of military and aeronautic applications.
In addition to scandium, Orbite is targeting 100 tonnes of gallium output a year, which it says is a growing market driven by the gallium arsenide used in semiconductors.
By year end, the company aims to complete a feasibility study on the SGA plant, which will indicate the energy source and costs.
Energy costs and access to natural gas near the mine is one of the concerns that analyst Jon Hykawy at Byron Capital Markets penned in a recent email to The Northern Miner.
“There is no natural gas available near the mine, and from what we are able to glean, the price of gas in the area is higher than what they quote in the PEA or revised PEA.” (The PEA assumed a cost of $4 per thousand cubic feet.)
“There’s absolutely no issue with energy,” responds Boudreault. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be natural gas, it could be liquefied natural gas that is imported, we can also import coal to process it, or we can use natural gas.”
Boudreault says Hykawy – who previously raised concerns about Orbite’s technology working on a continuous basis – has never visited the company’s facilities.
Meanwhile, Orbite has started building its HPA plant, which should be done by year end, with commercial production expected in early 2013.
The plant is estimated to generate three tonnes of high-purity alumina per day in the 12 months following commissioning. The amount of rare earths it could produce has not been disclosed.
In other news, Orbite said it has signed a tentative agreement with India’s National Aluminum Company (Nalco) where the Asian giant will evaluate Orbite’s patented technology on its aluminous ores and on the red mud produced from the traditional Bayer process before contemplating a partnership.
Orbite states that each tonne of alumina extracted from bauxite via the Bayer process generates about two tonnes of toxic red mud as waste. While only 5% of the red mud is used in the world, the rest is stored in ponds, and if spilled, can cause substantial environmental damages.
Orbite says its technology can be applied to extract alumina from Nalco’s bauxite deposits, without producing harmful wastes, while converting the existing red mud from operations into an environmentally neutral product.
Boudreault explains the process will be the same as the one used to recover alumina and rare earths from its clay deposits in Quebec. Instead of inputting red clay, it will use red mud and apply acid to it, which will transform the red mud essentially into the same type of ingredients: iron, silicon and alumina.
“Incredibly enough in the red mud there is a high quantity of alumina that is left by the Bayer process – not a very efficient process.”
Recent tests have shown that Orbite’s process could successfully isolate the key components found in red mud and remediate them as high-value commercial products such as magnesium oxide, iron, titanium and aluminum, while reducing the quantity of waste by 90%.
Boudreault adds the tentative agreement, announced on June 27, could pave the way for Nalco to become a licensee of its patented technology as well as participate as a partner at its Grande Vallee project.
Nalco is Asia’s biggest integrated aluminum complex, encompassing bauxite mining, alumina refining as well as aluminum smelting, power generation and rail operations.
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