Hastings eyes Estonia for rare earths plant

Western Australian rare earths developer Hastings Technology Metals is looking abroad to eastern Europe to process ore from its mine under construction in the Gascoyne.

The St Georges Terrace-based firm on Monday announced it is partnering with the Estonian government on a study to build a hydrometallurgical plant to process rare earth concentrate.

That decision follows Hastings taking a 21 per cent stake in Neo Performance Materials which is building a magnet manufacturing plant in Narva on the Russian border and already runs a rare earth separation facility in the nearby port town of Sillamae.

Hastings executive chairman Charles Lew said the deal could maximise value from its WA rare earths project.

“This also builds on our strategic investment into Neo Performance Materials to advance our vision of building a rare earth magnet supply chain for the European market, in line with the ongoing focus from European Union member states such as Germany to secure alternative sources for critical raw materials,” he said.

Hastings is developing the 20.93-million-tonne Yangibana rare earths project 250km east of Carnarvon.

The firm hopes to have the open pit mine online and feeding 1.1mpta into a processing plant by mid-2025.

A later stage would see a hydrometallurgical plant built to further refine Hastings’ 27 per cent rare earths concentrate into a 59 per cent carbonate for export.

The Estonain government investment agency's head Joonas Vanto said the feasibility study was a welcome move.

“The establishment of such a plant would help to further develop the value chain of permanent magnets and electrification that is already operating here and would support Estonia’s and the European Union’s ambition to achieve climate neutrality.”

Hastings in June last year signed a non-binding offtake deal with Canadian-listed Neo Technology Metals to supply 25,000 tonnes of rare earth concentrate from Yangibana.

Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo Metals backed that deal with a $150m convertible notes arrangement in 2022.

A binding agreement is expected to follow this year.

That move came one month after Hastings revealed a $330 million cost blowout to develop Yangibana which led the miner to split the build into two stages.