Why Saskatchewan wants to break into the rare earths market

A Saskatchewan organization is breaking ground as the first to commercially produce rare earth metals in North America.

The Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) first achieved the feat over the summer when it extracted neodymium praseodymium (NdPr) from a mineral called monazite. The group plans to break into the Chinese-dominated market once its facility is fully operational next year.

“The reason this isn’t happening all over the place is because it is really hard to do,” said Jeremy Harrison, the provincial minister responsible for the SRC treasury board crown corporation.

For decades, China has realized the value of rare earth metals — a set of 17 elements on the periodic table — that are key components in the digital world and used in everything from cell phones to electric vehicles (EVs).

NdPr powers the strongest type of rare earth magnets used in EVs. The material is almost entirely outsourced from China, which controls about 90 per cent of the rare earths market, according to the SRC.

“In the past two years, there has been a lot of interest outside of China to develop this sector,” said Muhammad Imran, the SRC’s vice president of rare earth elements.

At times, China uses its stronghold as leverage to force foreign policy, according to Heather Exner-Pirot, the director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

In December 2023, China placed an export ban on its rare earths processing technologies.

“They are experts on it. They’re leaders on it, and they don’t want anyone else to be able to diversify,” Exner-Pirot said.

China has been able to perfect the technology needed to commercially process these elements, in part due to the country’s lax environmental and labour laws.

“It can be a dirty job. It can be a difficult job,” Exner-Pirot said.

The liquid metal is ladled into ingot moulds during one of the processing stages. (Saskatchewan Resource Council)

The job involves working with extreme heat to smelt metals, which is why the SRC has enlisted the help of artificial intelligence to handle some of the labour.

“We wanted to de-risk this. We did not want to create radically new processes which would introduce risk. We wanted to use existing processes, but operate them a lot smarter,” said SRC president Mike Crabtree.

After months of tinkering with the AI technology, the SRC can process 10 tonnes of NdPr each month. By the end of 2025, the organization hopes to process 400 tonnes annually, a supply that will help manufacture 500,000 EVs.

Earlier this year, the SRC along with Ottawa, purchased a stockpile of rare earths that came from a mine near Yellowknife. They were originally slated to be sold to a Chinese company.

“What we want is that value to stay here in Canada rather than being exported. So we want to play a key role in initiating that supply chain predominantly for North America,” Crabtree said.

Exner-Pirot said any tip in the scales will help diversify the market.

“Any time you can reduce China’s leverage in the market, it is going to be overall net positive. So getting them from 90 per cent dominant to 85 or 80 per cent dominant, that all helps in reducing their leverage,” she said.

Rare earths capabilities reach beyond EVs. Canada’s competitiveness within the market is important for national defence, too, Crabtree said.

The SRC has plans to eventually process the rare earth samarium, a key ingredient in defence weapons, such as F-35 fighter jets.

Crabtree said the facility could process enough samarium required for 25 per cent of North America’s defence weapons.