Almonty Industries Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Korean Mine Rehabilitation and Resource Corporation (KOMIR) and Hannae For T to strengthen the South Korean domestic supply chain through the joint promotion of recycling rare metals using scrap resources and tungsten concentrates downstream to nano tungsten oxide and other essential products.

KOMIR is the Korean government agency responsible for national resource security, including developing overseas mining and processing capacity to supply the Korean market. One of KOMIR’s strategic objectives is to upgrade the country's access to critical minerals.  

The three parties have agreed to jointly, in good faith, investigate and undertake a feasibility study on a “public-private joint rare metal recycling project.” Hannae has developed proprietary technology to extract tungsten, vanadium and titanium from wasted SCR catalysts.

The MoU will remainin effect for two years and can be extended by agreement between the parties before the expiration. The agreement can also be terminated by notifying the other signatories. 

“We see this as an important further collaboration with the South Korean government who are already providing significant economic and tax incentives for Almonty Korea Tungsten in its construction of the Sangdong Mine,” said Almonty President and CEO Lewis Black. 

The Sangdong mine, located 187 kilometres southeast of Seoul, will be the largest tungsten mine outside of China. Production is scheduled to begin in late 2022/early 2023.

Source: Almonty Industries