Commerce Resources Advances Ashram Rare Earth Project in Quebec with in Demand Fluorite Byproduct – in Talks with Majors
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 5/12/2016
Commerce Resources (CVE: CCE) is a Canadian exploration company focusing on rare elements and rare metals. For the last five years, it has been advancing its Ashram Rare Earth project located in Quebec, succeeding in quadrupling the grade of its concentrate, lowering costs in the flow sheet, and producing, at no cost, an in-demand fluorite byproduct. According to Chris Grove, President and CEO of Commerce Resources, the project has already received significant potential joint venture interest from Japanese, German and American companies.
Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-chief of Metals News interviewed Chris, President and CEO of Commerce Resources (CVE: CCE), to let readers know about the progress the company has been making on the Ashram rare earth elements project located in Quebec. Mr. Grove said, “We have been focusing, for the last five years or so, on our Ashram rare earth elements project in Northern Quebec. For that project, we have been successful raising about $18 million dollars in the last five years. We have economics that came out in 2012 that were very robust. Obviously, the rare earth elements prices have fallen, but in the four years since we have done the PEA, we have quadrupled the grade of our concentrate, we have lowered the costs in the flow sheet by reducing the secondary acid leach and found that we can produce, at no cost, a fluorite byproduct.” Dr. Alper commented, “That sounds really excellent!”
The company has been in talks with major companies to determine the interest in this byproduct, which is commonly used for processing mining products. Mr. Grove said, “In terms of investigating the value of that fluorite, we have been meeting with major mining companies like Rio Tinto, Glencore, etcetera, and we were interested to find out that there is a lot of interest in this fluorite byproduct. “
Fluorite itself has an interesting story. Mr. Grove said, “Fluorite is another byproduct commodity similar to rare earth elements, dominated by supply from China. So, a domestic supply of acid grade fluorite, which goes into the production of hydrofluoric acid, which all major mining companies use to process their ores, would be of significant interest to a mining company like the ones I mentioned. We are interested in seeing where that kind of opportunity goes.”
Mr. Grove said, “Obviously our focus is still on the rare earth elements. We have the best economics in the rare earth elements sector and we have improved those in the last four years, quite significantly. So we are certainly interested in getting out our prefeasibility study. We would need a bit more capital to do that, but we have already received significant potential joint venture interest on this project from Japanese companies, from German companies, from American companies and we are in the process of looking to produce samples for about ten of those possible joint venture partners.”
The company has hired experts in metallurgy to assist them in developing a production plan to take the project to the next level. “At this point, the metallurgical work is being done at probably the world’s best rare earth elements R & D facility which is Hazen Research in Golden, Colorado. They have done work on basically everybody’s deposit. That is where our pilot plant was in operation last fall. It is on hiatus right now, but hopefully we will be restarting it in the next couple of months and then producing these samples for all of the companies that I referenced earlier.”
Mr. Grove gave some insight into the rare earth elements market and the geology that makes them so challenging to produce. He said, “The interesting thing about the rare earth elements is everyone understands that they are not rare. They are fairly abundant in the Earth’s crust. The difficulty comes in processing the rocks that host rare earth elements. They are a very odd ball commodity that can be found in about 200 host minerals, but there are only four minerals that are commercially processed today. In terms of the geology – the rock type, the majority of hard rock sources are carbonatite, which is what we are hosted by. This gives us a distinct advantage in that we don’t need new technology to process our ore body.”
Mr. Grove is very happy with the leadership team. He said, “We have amassed a very good team. We have Jody Dahrouge who has managed all of our on site programs and Ian Graham who was with Rio Tinto for 15 years. Ian was in the Project Generation division at Rio, and he was in charge of advancing Diavik. We have Dave Hodge, who was the original President for 14 years. I took over in 2014. And we have our project manager Darren Smith, who has been working on the Ashram project since the beginning and understands metallurgy really well. We feel that we have a good mix of people that understand mining and metallurgy. We are very proud of our Board.”
Geologist Alex Knox at the Ashram Project (August 2015)
Financially, the company recently completed a small financing. Mr. Grove said, “In terms of finances, we have about $1 million in the bank right now. We did raise $2 million in December through a flow through offering. That will be spent on drilling the deposit and baseline environmental consultations and social programs. We won the E3 Plus Award from the Quebec Mineral Association for “Excellence” for our environmental and social programs. We are currently working on a short form prospectus offering. We think it is a very good opportunity for people who want a position in the company. We hope to have that closed in the next month.”
Why should investors look at Commerce Resources? Mr. Grove said, “I think one of the most important issues that people are currently concerned about is global warming and to effect any positive change in this, through a reduction in fossil fuel dependence and an increase in green technologies, the commodities that are necessary are lithium and REE’s. It is obvious that lithium prices have been positively affected by this and arguably the next commodities that should benefit are the REE’s. Currently we are excited by the milestones we have achieved, by the recent developments we have announced, such as the discount on sulfuric acid from Glencore, and by what we have currently in the pipeline. Investors of course want to make money and overall, I think the market is changing for the better and especially for key commodities such as the REE’s.”
Dr. Alper commented, “I think this is the right time for what you are doing. You have a great project, an excellent team, great companies to work with and very good planning. You are doing a great job.
http://www.commerceresources.com
Suite 1450 - 789 West Pender Street
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6C 1H2
Email: info@commerceresources.com
Tel: 604 484 2700
Fax: 604 681 8240
North American Toll-Free: 866 484 2700
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