NioCorp Developments Ltd. (NASDAQ: NB) witnessed a notable surge in its stock value during the after-market trading session on Friday, marking a significant uptick of 22.36% to attain $2.90. Contrarily, the regular trading session concluded with NioCorp experiencing a 4.44% decline, settling at $2.37. This remarkable escalation in NB’s stock performance on the US market ensued subsequent to the revelation of its venture into a recycling endeavor.
In keeping with its planned Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in southeast Nebraska, NioCorp (NB) plans to investigate the viability of recycling permanent rare earth magnets. The project is to examine the feasibility of reusing post-consumer neodymium-iron-boron permanent rare earth magnets (“NdFeB magnets”) into separated rare earth oxides that are ready for the creation of new NdFeB magnets, both technically and commercially.
The investigative efforts are poised to commence with bench-scale assessments initially, potentially advancing to demonstration-scale evaluations based on preliminary findings. It’s imperative to note that this exploration will operate independently from the ongoing endeavors to update NB’s Elk Creek Project Feasibility Study.
Upon initiation, the research and development endeavor will concentrate on devising streamlined procedures to demagnetize, prepare, and pulverize used magnets into a raw material that can be subsequently processed by NioCorp within the chemical framework of its planned Elk Creek Project, ultimately yielding separated rare earth products.
The process flow diagram conceptualized by NioCorp for the Elk Creek Project exhibits promising potential for incorporating rare earth magnet recycling seamlessly, with minimal modifications to the existing configuration, save for the augmentation of rare earth separations capacity towards the culmination of the process. This presents a pragmatic and expeditious avenue for establishing a robust magnet recycling infrastructure within the United States.
Successful demonstration of NdFeB magnet recycling feasibility via this initiative, coupled with the attainment of adequate project financing for the construction of the envisaged Elk Creek Project facility, could potentially empower NioCorp to augment its planned production capacity of neodymium-praseodymium oxide, dysprosium oxide, and terbium oxide, surpassing the anticipated reserves within the Elk Creek ore body.
