Medallion Resources Ltd has announced that it would be acquiring existing holdings of the reddish-brown phosphate mineral Monazite that contains rare earth metals as part of its new strategy. Medallion has also decided not to invest more funds into the exploration of the Eden Lake property in Manitoba, Canada.
Chairman and CEO of the company, Dr Bill Bird said that they were aggressively pursuing opportunities with mineral-sands producers to acquire sources of Monazite in order to achieve expedited production of rare earths. He added that the Eden Lake property does not offer, at this stage of its exploration, a near-term potential resource. As such, the property does not fit with their current plans.
Monazite is a rare-earth phosphate mineral that typically contains 50 to 60% rare earths. As per the press release they said that the company was making significant progress developing its strategy to exploit the substantial available monazite rare-earth resources.
With rare-earth production from by-product monazite, the Company intends to advance the production timeline, save significantly on capital and operating costs, and provide a short-term payback to investors. Monazite is accessible in significant quantities from heavy mineral sands mining operations around the globe. This prospective source of rare earths has been virtually ignored for decades as the bigger heavy mineral sands producers have focused on their primary markets of titanium and zirconium minerals.