Sep 28 2015
Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp., an exploration company targeting the heavy rare earths, was awarded a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) research contract by the United States Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Strategic Materials Division.
The Defense Logistics Agency is the Department of Defense's largest logistics combat support agency, providing worldwide logistics support in both peacetime and wartime to the military services as well as several civilian agencies and foreign countries. The DLA Strategic Materials Division is charged with maintaining cognizance of worldwide strategic and critical material's supply chain from the source to final assembly, evaluating the capability of these supply chains to support national defense and essential civilian industries, and developing mitigation solutions when access to materials are insufficient to provide support for national defense and emergency response.
Texas Rare Earth Resources, in conjunction with its joint venture partner K-Technologies Inc., will conduct research to demonstrate, at the bench scale level, the ability to separate and refine yttrium (Y) oxide to a minimum of 99.999% purity, ytterbium (Yb) oxide to a minimum of 99.99% purity and a third rare earth oxide, which is not being publicly disclosed, to a minimum 99.999% purity level, using continuous ion exchange (CIX) and continuous ion chromatography (CIC). It is anticipated that all work under the contract will be completed within ninety days of contract award.
"Texas Rare Earth Resources is committed to developing a reliable source of critical rare earths here in the United States, as well as an effective means to separate them," said Dan Gorski, CEO. "We welcome the opportunity of demonstrating to the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency our ability to produce specific high-purity rare earth oxides they have selected using our CIX/CIC process."
The feedstock for the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency contract will come from TRER's Round Top deposit near El Paso, Texas, with processing taking place at K-Tech's Lakeland, Florida facility. "This is a first step towards restoring a U.S. rare earths supply chain," noted Anthony Marchese, Chairman of the TRER Board of Directors. "The Round Top heavy rare earth project is uniquely positioned as a potential long-term domestic source of critical rare earths and associated high value byproducts such as uranium, lithium, scandium and beryllium."
About Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp.
Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp.'s primary focus is exploring and, if warranted, developing its Round Top rare earth minerals project located in Hudspeth County, Texas, 85 miles east of El Paso. The Company's common stock trades on the OTCQX U.S. tier under the symbol "TRER."
Source: http://www.trer.com/