Asian Metal attends opening ceremony of Brown Range Pilot Plant of Northern Minerals

On July 27, 2018, Vivian Pang, consultant on rare earth market from Asian Metal, was invited to attend the opening ceremony of Brown Range Pilot Plant of Northern Minerals Limited (ASX: NTU). Located in East Kimberley region in WA, the plant is the flagship project 100% held by Northern Minerals.

Hon. Alannah MacTiernan, Minister of WA Regional Development and Ministry of Agriculture and Food attended the ceremony as a special guest and expressed her sincere congratulations on Northern Minerals. Attendees also included over 50 people from major members and shareholders of board of director of Northern Minerals, SINOSTEELMECC (general contractor of the Pilot Plant), Primero Group Pty Ltd. (local contractor), Asian Metal, Nexia Australia and People Start (financial companies), Canning Spurple (image production company), Economic Competitiveness and Land Access (mineral organization in WA) and local media.

George Bauk, CEO of Northern Minerals, gave a lecture at the opening ceremony. "The opening of the Brown range heavy rare earths project is nearly eight years in the making since the initial discovery in 2010," he said. He also expressed the sincere appreciation to the government's support, shareholders' trust and our team's effort.

The construction of the plant began in July 2017 and was finished in June 2018. The dressing plant and hydraulic power plant have been put into operation and about 1,000t of ores have been crushed. The first batch of ores has been processed by the dressing plant and the hydrometallurgical plant is under debugging and testing. The Pilot Plant is expected to see rare earth concentrate in September formally with an annual processing capacity of 60,000t. The first phase of production is expected to last for three years.

On April 6, 2017, Northern Minerals signed a sale contract about Brown Range Pilot Plant products with Lianyungang Zeyu New Materials Co., Ltd., 51% of shares of which are held by Guangdong Rare Earths Industry Group, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Guangdong Rising Assets Management Co., Ltd. According to the agreement, Zeyu New Materials will purchase the first batch of products produced by Northern Minerals Brown Range Pilot Plant referring to average prices within two months in Asian Metal and the other website.

Based on the current exploration, the mining life of Brown Range project is 11 years, which is expected to be lengthened to over 20 years as the company began a new round of exploration in mid-July. Northern Minerals focuses on the supply of heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium with the aim to become a major supplier of dysprosium products besides China through developing Brown Range project.