American Rare Earths Ltd (ASX:ARR, OTCQX:ARRNF) has locked in a Wyoming-led pilot plant pathway for its Halleck Creek rare earths project , outlining a staged processing plan designed to accelerate pre-production rare earth oxide output.
Initial processing will be undertaken in Wyoming through Western Research Institute in Laramie and DISA Technologies in Casper, before final hydrometallurgical processing and oxide separation at the Saskatchewan Research Council in Saskatoon, Canada. Agreements have now been executed with all three groups.
Under the three-stage pilot program, milling and sizing will be completed at Western Research Institute, while mineral separation and concentration will be carried out at DISA’s Casper facility. The final stage, covering leaching, impurity removal and oxide refining, will be completed by SRC.
American Rare Earths will use ore already extracted from Halleck Creek and stockpiled in Laramie. At Casper, DISA’s patented High-Pressure Slurry Ablation technology will be used to improve mineral liberation at coarser particle sizes, followed by GradePro reflux classification and induced roll magnetic separation to produce an allanite-rich concentrate for downstream treatment.
“This is a massive step forward for the company. The pilot plant and production of pre-production rare earth oxide were previously expected to take several years. This defined pilot pathway now materially shortens the timeline and positions the company to deliver outcomes within months. We are laser-focused on accelerating the largest United States domestic resource of total rare earth elements towards production,” American Rare Earths CEO Mark Wall said.
Pilot work to inform commercial development
The company said SRC and engineering consultant Tetra Tech will engineer the final stage of the pilot plant using the pre-feasibility study flowsheet. It added that the selected SRC facility is similar in process configuration, though smaller in scale, to the type of downstream plant envisaged for Wyoming as Halleck Creek moves toward commercial development. Data from the pilot campaign is expected to feed into design criteria for the proposed commercial plant and mine.
American Rare Earths has also appointed metallurgical engineer Jaye T. Pickarts to lead the pilot plant process. Pickarts has more than four decades of experience in mine development, mineral processing and environmental compliance, including work on rare earth demonstration plants and Wyoming-based permitting and operations.
The staged approach is intended to shorten the timeline to rare earth oxide production, validate the broader flowsheet and generate material for downstream evaluation and strategic engagement, while reducing execution risk through the use of existing facilities, specialist operators and installed or ordered equipment.
