Lab Fab’s third MoU with rare earth exploration companies.
Viridion, a joint venture between the Australian mining companies Ionic Rare Earths and Viridis Mining and Minerals, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Brazilian SENAI FIEMG Innovation and Technology Centre. SENAI stands for Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial, which roughly translates to National Service for Industrial Training. The organization provides training for specialized workers in fields such as mining and chemical engineering. The center is developing South America’s first rare earth magnet production facility, Lab Fab.
Under the five-year agreement, the two sides will seek to outline supply agreements for a pilot rare earth magnet plant, conduct joint research on supply chains, and explore other areas of cooperation, such as consultancy or training. Ionic and Viridis launched Viridion in April (PDF). The joint venture plans to source rare earth raw material from Viridis’ Colossus project in the Eastern state of Minas Gerais and use Ionic’s processing technology and methods to produce rare earths suitable for magnet production. These could then supply the magnet-making facility. Lab Fab plans to begin initial production stages in the next months with a targeted production of 100 tons of rare earth magnets annually by 2026. The magnet maker aims to double this within three years.
This marks the third agreement between Lab Fab and mining companies. In June, fellow Australia-based mining company Meteoric Resources signed a similar deal over feedstock material from Meteoric’s Caldeira rare earth project, also in the state of Minas Gerais. In September, Brazilian Critical Minerals, which is developing a rare earth project in Northern Brazil, also signed such a memorandum with the technology center (we reported).
Photo: iStock/Michael Ien Cohen