Securing the rare earths supply chain: ABx Group's strategic partnership with Ucore Rare Metals

Securing the rare earths supply chain: ABx Group’s strategic partnership with Ucore Rare Metals

ABx Group Limited (ASX:ABX) Managing Director and CEO Dr Mark Cooksey discusses the significance of the company's memorandum of understanding with Ucore Rare Metals.

Peter Milios: I'm Peter Milios from the Finance News Network, and today I'm talking with ABx Group (ASX:ABC). ABx Group, trading under the ASX code" ABX", with a market capitalisation of approximately $11m, is a uniquely positioned Australian company delivering materials for a cleaner future. The two areas of focus are the creation of an ionic adsorption clay rare earths project in northern Tasmania, and the establishment of a plant to produce hydrogen fluoride and aluminium fluoride from recycled industrial waste to replace imports. Joining me today is Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Mark Cooksey. Mark, welcome back to the network.

Dr Mark Cooksey: Great, Peter. Nice to be with you again.

Peter Milios: Mark, the company recently announced the signing of an MOU with Ucore Rare Metals. Can you explain the significance of this?

Dr Mark Cooksey: Yeah, we think it's significant because we're trying to get up a supply chain for rare earths not focused on China. There's obviously lots of prospects around the world for mines, but we also need processing plants, and Ucore is sort of a leading contender to establish a separation plant, produce separated rare earth oxides, and can be the direct customer for ABx.

Peter Milios: And what are the key features of the MOU?

Dr Mark Cooksey: Well, number one is that we're going to discuss offtake agreement — I mean, that's obvious — in terms of we're going to produce, the aim is to produce a mixed rare earth carbonate, which can be sold to Ucore to produce the separated rare earth oxides. But the other important element of the MOU, which is we're going to discuss potential investment by Ucore into ABx, and this is important, because it illustrates that the downstream companies are willing to invest upstream in exploration to help create the value chain.

Peter Milios: And, Mark, how does Ucore plan to use the mixed rare earth carbonates supplied by ABx?

Dr Mark Cooksey: Yeah, so Ucore, they're planning to build a separation plant only, at the moment only take supply from, not from themselves. So, they need third-party suppliers and produce separated rare earth oxide. So, they'll take our mixed rare earth carbonate, run it through a special solvent extraction process they've developed, and produce, you know, can imagine neodymium oxide, dysprosium oxide, and all the separated rare earth oxides.

Peter Milios: And, Mark, what are the potential benefits and synergies of this partnership for ABx?

Dr Mark Cooksey: Yeah, there's a few. So, obviously, one, with discussions we can then get to a binding offtake agreement. As I said, there's also potential investment by Ucore into ABx. And also probably the big one is we're really approaching this with a very partnership focus. So, what we're really trying to do is take the ore that we have and produce the separated rare earth oxides that Ucore can do, but optimise every step of the way, whether that's us doing it or Ucore doing it. We are looking to how do we share the risk and value of the opportunity, not just maximising our own individual parts of it.

Peter Milios: And I just want to ask lastly, what are the key news flow investors should expect over the next six to 12 months?

Dr Mark Cooksey: Yeah, the next six to 12 months. So, there'd be some more exploration, definitely more metallurgical studies, showing with confidence how we're going to extract the rail earths from our deposit. I'd expect some economic assessments to show the attractiveness of the project, and then further advancements on the commercial side with Ucore and other potential customers.

Peter Milios: Mark, thank you so much for your time.

Dr Mark Cooksey: Great. Thank you, Peter.