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With rare earth metals likely to be an emerging industry in Saskatchewan, the province's existing industries could see benefits from a new sector opening up.
The Saskatchewan Research Council announced earlier this week that their Rare Earth Processing Facility is the first in North America to produce rare earth metals at a commercial scale.
President and CEO Mike Crabtree explains that their facility is focused on the middle of the production chain.
"It encompasses pretty much the whole midstream process. So upstream is the mining of the material, of the monocyte, of the rare ores, and to some extent the beneficiation of it, that's the upstream piece. The downstream piece is the production of electric magnets from the metals and the production of things like EVs, wind turbines, and the like."
"The midstream is that bit in the middle, which goes from the mined mineral right through to the production of the metals and that's something that has been missing not just from Canada but from North America as a whole. So this vertical integration going right from the mineral to the separated rare earths, to the metal production that fully integrated piece in one single plant is what we're commissioning over the next coming months and the first part of that commissioning is the production of those metals."
That upstream could be a potential point for Saskatchewan's mining industry, with the provincial government looking at rare earth extraction more and more.
"There are going to be rare earth mines and production in Saskatchewan and frankly right across Canada. There are going to be rare earth mines. The challenge that we have as Canadians is that do we just sell that to other jurisdictions which then process it through the midstream and the downstream where they capture that additional value or do we look to create midstream processing facilities which captures a significant amount of that value."
Further expanding the midstream capability in the province would represent a significant increase in value when it comes to those materials harvested in the upstream projects.
"I'll put this in context. The difference between the per ton value of the mineral as it's mined from the ground and the pattern value of the metals that are produced is a factor of 20 or 30 times. So the question that our government and we've asked is well, why should we not be capturing that value, not only mining them, these minerals, but actually going through the midstream and creating these high-value midstream products."
Crabtree says that he hopes further investment into the sector means that mining and other industries can see more value in the province.
"The role of Saskatchewan in this because we're taking a lead, not just a Canadian lead, but a North American lead in this midstream sector, we can see a future where Saskatchewan is the processing hub for all of Canada for these materials because this is where the expertise and this is where the sector will reside."