Sweden’s state-owned mining company LKAB announced a month ago that it had located “Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals”. The well was located near Kiruna, in the far north of Sweden, where the company already operates a massive iron ore mine.
The media jumped on it. Rare Earths (rare earth elements, REEs) are of growing interest. Particularly because they are crucial for green technologies – such as batteries – that have to replace fossil fuels. The EU is now almost entirely dependent on China for these minerals. But she wants to set up her own industry for mining and processing it. Because too much dependence makes us vulnerable, as the war between Russia and Ukraine has shown for oil and gas.
In a press release LKAB wrote that the deposit could meet the future demand of the EU for rare earth metals needed for the production of magnets in electric cars and wind turbines, among other things. It sounded like Europe had been saved. But is that true?
Mutual ratio
The five geologists interviewed for this article are quite cautious. All five took part in the project that inventoried Europe’s deposits containing rare earth metals between 2013 and 2017 – they wrote a review article about into Ore Geology Reviews. On the website of the project (Eurare) the final map 76 deposits, divided into three categories. In English: resources, deposits and occurrences. The last category is by far the largest. “Occurrences are locations where the presence of rare earth elements has been described, but nothing is known about their concentration,” explains Kathryn Goodenough of the British Geological Survey. Knowledge about the concentration is crucial, because it also determines whether mining makes economic sense. In addition, the ratio of the rare earth metals – a group of 17 elements – is also important, says Goodenough. Because they are very similar chemically, they often occur together in rock. But their relationship can vary greatly. And the demand for praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd) and dysprosium (Dy) in particular is expected to increase sharply. So you want those who score high in the ratio.
The next category, deposits, says Goodenough, “have the potential to be economically extracted.” But more research is still needed to determine the concentration of the rare earth metals and their mutual relationship. “Such exploration is usually expensive because it often requires deep drilling,” says Goodenough. Such an exploration has taken place in the resources category. An official estimate of the concentration of rare earths has been made.
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In the press release, the company says nothing about the concentration found
Per Kalvig geologist
The deposit, now ‘localised’ by LKAB, was already on the 2017 EU map. occurrence. LKAB has conducted exploration there in recent years. “But in the press release, the company says nothing about the concentration of the rare earth metals found or their ratio,” says Per Kalvig of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. This makes it difficult to estimate the value of the find.
Another complication is the type of rock in which LKAB found the rare earth metals, says Anouk Borst, affiliated with KU Leuven and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. It consists of iron oxide and the phosphate-containing mineral apatite. The rare earth metals are mainly in that apatite. LKAB outlines it as an advantage. It can extract iron ore and also extract rare earth metals and phosphate from the apatite. The latter is an essential component of fertilizer and, like the rare earth metals, is on the European list of critical raw materials. But Borst says it would be the first time rare earth metals have been commercially extracted from apatite.
On the wrong foot
In a recent article Kathryn Goodenough refers to two types of rock as “the warehouses” of rare-earth elements: carbonatite and alkaline magmatic rock. “They often occur in the same geological setting,” says Borst. She explains that the name rare earths misleads you. “It sounds like they are very rare. They are not,” she says. Rare earth metals are very common in the earth’s crust, but usually in low concentrations. In some places, however, their concentrations have increased. “That enrichment happens through what we call primary and secondary processes that have taken place over the past billions of years.” Primary processes have to do with the movement of the earth’s plates and the behavior of magma therewith. When continents drift apart, a kind of magma emerges that can form the rock carbonatite when it solidifies. This often contains elevated concentrations of rare earth metals. The largest mine in China from which rare earth metals are extracted is such a carbonatite mine.
Then there are the secondary processes, explains Borst. These have to do with tropical weathering of rock that is already rich in rare earth metals. In the weathering soil they sometimes concentrate further. “For example, in certain types of clay,” says Borst. China extracted a significant portion of its heavier rare earths (including dysprosium) from such clays domestically. “But there were protests against this because large areas of land are deforested during extraction, and acids are used that seep through the clay and are very harmful to the environment.” Part of this extraction, together with the pollution, has now moved to the north of Myanmar.
A whole new story
Commercial extraction of rare earths from iron oxide apatite ore, as now announced by LKAB, is a whole new story. The advantage is that work is already being done on this in Europe. In 2018, a consortium of companies and research institutes was set up that, supported by a EUR 12.5 million grant from Brussels, aims to develop a method to extract both phosphate and rare earth metals from apatite. In addition to the Norwegian fertilizer manufacturer Yara and the German magnet manufacturer Vacuumschmelze, the Norwegian start-up Reetec is also participating. Reetec focuses on the purification and separation of rare earth metals from apatite. After setting up a pilot plant in 2019, it announced last year that it would build a factory. Then last November, LKAB announced that it had bought back into Reetec and had become a major shareholder.
LKAB describes the technology developed by Reetec as ‘efficient’ and ‘environmentally friendly’. For example, the hydrochloric acid used in the process is recovered. Reetec’s spokesperson said via email that he would not provide details and background material about the technology.
If this project goes through in Sweden, China really won’t sit on its hands
Per Kalvig geologist
What does all this mean now? Per Kalvig considers it an advantage that LKAB not only wants to extract rare earth metals, but also iron ore and phosphate. “The rare earth metals are a by-product,” he says. This makes the project less sensitive to price fluctuations of rare earths and Chinese manipulations of the market. “Because if this project goes through in Sweden, China really won’t sit on its hands. That has a plan B.”
City center moved
Anouk Borst calls it an advantage that iron ore has been mined in Kiruna for over a century. The population is familiar with it – the city center is now, of all things, being moved due to mining expansion. “In addition, LKAB is a state-owned company and Sweden has a good reputation. It has a high priority on safety and the environment.” But the fact that LKAB has not announced anything about the concentration of the rare earth metals and their mutual relationship, she finds it a disadvantage. She still has a thesis by the Swedish master’s student Marit Lindborn who, after research, concluded that the apatite mainly contains a lot of lanthanum, cerium and neodymium. “Lanthanum and cerium are already abundant and yield little. It is mainly the amount of neodymium, and also phosphate, that will determine whether the extraction from apatite becomes profitable.”
Read about Kiruna city center: In the Swedish city of Kiruna, even the iconic church gives way to the iron ore mine
According to Daniel Oliveira of the National Laboratory of Energy and Geology in Portugal, the LKAB press release is “just another way to get potential investors interested.” In Europe there have been projects in the past that seemed promising, but failed. So says Kathryn Goodenough.
The two most promising deposits from the earlier European inventory were Kvanefjeld in southern Greenland and Norra Kärr in southern Sweden – both in alkaline magmatic rock. “They seemed to be the key deposits for European independence,” she says. Both projects have since been halted. In Norra Kärr there was protest from the local community against the extraction. And in Greenland, a law was passed in 2021 that sets an upper limit on the concentration of uranium that may be contained in the mined material (no more than 100 parts per million). This concentration is higher at Kvanefjeld. Greenland then decided not to grant an operating licence. The company that wants to exploit Kvanefjeld is reportedly working on a new permit application. It wants to dispose of the uranium safely.