St George Mining has joined forces with two of Brazil’s leading government scientific agencies to develop an optimal downstream process for the company’s niobium and rare earth mineralisation at its Araxá project.
The company recently secured $20 million in funding to acquire 100 per cent of the project located within the renowned mining region of Minas Gerais in south-east Brazil.
St George’s partnership with the two government funded agencies, EMBRAPII (Brazilian Association for Research and Industrial Innovation) and SENAI (National Industrial Educational Services) by way of a technical collaboration agreement, will enable the three entities to work on developing a sustainable process for the production of ferroniobium - an alloy used to reduce the weight and strengthen steel as well improve resistance to corrosion - and rare earth products.
The co-venture will undertake studies of the niobium and rare earths mineralisation uncovered at Araxá to develop a new and sustainable process, enabling the maximum recovery of the highly valuable metals.
St George says the three-way collaboration will be laser-focused on improving the combined technical knowledge on how best to separate the rare earths from the niobium oxide towards producing a commercial product of the respective metals.
The agreement places St George in the prime position to play a major role in the Brazilian critical metals supply chain. It is a major coup for the company giving it exclusive access to commercialising the intellectual property developed by the co-venture for a period of 10 years.
In another win for the company, no additional royalties or other fees will be payable to the two government agencies.
St George Mining executive chairman John Prineas said: “The Technical Collaboration Agreement is a key step to support the development of an optimum processing flowsheet for the Araxá Project. We are delighted to have finalised this agreement with SENAI and EMBRAPII which has the potential to provide a major breakthrough in the efficiency and sustainability of mining and processing activities at Araxa.”
The Araxá deposit hosts extensive mineralisation with previous drilling returning more than 500 high-grade intercepts starting from surface and include grades up to 8 per cent niobium oxide and 33 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO).
Results for niobium include 43m at 1.5 per cent from surface, 20m going 2.4 per cent also from surface including 10m running 3.2 per cent from 2m and 33m grading 2.1 per cent niobium from 4m.
TREO results have included 60m going 11.1 per cent from surface and included a 30m section grading 16.9 per cent from 27.5m depth, 45m running at 14.4 per cent from 15m which included a high-grade slice of 7.5m at 31.5 per cent from 40m.
Some of the key terms of the collaboration include a 10 month duration period which can be extended by mutual agreement and a three-stage development process.
The first stage will be to characterise the ore and perform concentrate tests, second stage will be to optimise the production process of niobium and rare earths at lab scale with the final stage of the process being the production of a ferroniobium alloy and niobium metal.
The estimated cost for the work to be performed is $170,000, of which 50 per cent will be funded by EMBRAPII, 40 per cent by St George and the remaining 10 per cent by SENAI.
Both government scientific agencies, EMBRAPII and SENAI have expertise in optimising mineral processing operations through the development of innovative technology and claim best practice ESG standards.
St George recently revealed it varied the agreement for the acquisition of the Araxá project extending the completion date to March 15th.
By collaborating with two respected scientific agencies, the company has taken a significant step towards the goal of developing a world-leading process and unlocking the full value from its niobium and rare earths acquisition.
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By Craig Nolan
