As part of its long-term investment program, Acron Group implements a project of complex apatite-nepheline rock processing at Veliky Novgorod production site to produce rare earth elements (REE) cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, concentrates of light, medium and heavy rare earth elements from apatite concentrate process flows. The annual capacity of REE operations is 200 tons of rare earth oxides.
The project is included in the sub-program of Rare and Rare-earth Metal Technologies of the federal Industry Development and Its Competitive Growth program.
The implementation of the project started in 2010. The investments totaled approximately $50 million. The feedstock is apatite concentrate supplied by Oleniy Ruchey mine (a member of Acron Group) in the Murmansk region. Thereby, the complex processing of apatite concentrate has been achieved for the first time in Russia.
The unique REE processing technology was developed by Acron (Veliky Novgorod) R&D center with participation of leading research centers in Russia.
All of the end product will be shipped to the local market for producers of glass, catalysts for oil cracking and rubbers. REE are also used for production of alloys, magnets, electronics, as well as by defense industry. Currently, China is a monopoly REE manufacturer (over 90% of the global market). (Metalinfo/Ukrainian metal)