NASDAQ-listed Critical Metals Corp’s CEO Tony Sage says the circa-4.7 billion-tonne Tanbreez rare earth deposit in southern Greenland can be turned into a “game-changing rare earth mine for the West” after the company agreed to pay up to US$211 million for a controlling stake.
Critical Metals described Tanbreez, said to be the world’s second largest undeveloped RE resource, as a “permitted, globally significant critical minerals asset positioned to unlock a sustainable, reliable and long-term rare earth supply for North America and Europe”.
“With Tanbreez expected to be under the Critical Metals Corp banner, we will have the ability to further support our commercial network in Europe while simultaneously being able to evaluate additional opportunities to tap into the upside potential of the North American market,” Sage said.
Critical Metals, which has a current market value around $880 million, has signed a binding heads of agreement with veteran Australian geologist Greg Barnes’ Rimbal to buy the stake in Tanbreez.
Barnes has said previously he had spent more than $50 million on exploration and development of Tanbreez. He told an Australian newspaper the heavy-RE-rich, uranium and thorium-free, deposit was one of “the 10 deposits in the world that every geologist wants to visit”.
“Ninety-seven per cent of what we mine will sell,” he said.
Outcropping mineralisation in one 8km-by-5km wide area was about 400m thick. Tanbreez was expected to possess greater than 27% heavy rare earth elements (HREE), Critical Metals Corp said, though it said its “assessment and estimates of the Tanbreez project to date have been limited”.
“In an industry where competitors primarily target light rare earth elements, Tanbreez is believed to be unique not only due to its significant size, but also because of its HREE asset mix,” it said.
Tanbreez had an exploitation licence granted by the Greenland Government in 2020.
Critical Metals earlier this month announced automaker BMW had paid $15 million to its subsidiary ECM Lithium AT, for offtake of battery-grade lithium hydroxide (LiOH) from the proposed Wolfsberg Lithium project in Austria.
Sage said the pre-payment “further strengthens our balance sheet and will allow us to further advance our development strategy”.
Wolfsberg was the first fully permitted lithium development project in Europe, he said.
