Rare Earths Norway €24m Fen pilot plant: flowsheet and zoning notes for mine planners
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Rare Earths Norway has approved a €24-million pilot plant at Ulefoss to test an integrated ore-to-rare-earth-oxide flowsheet for the Fen deposit, which holds 123 million indicated tonnes at 1.35% TREO plus 1.08 billion inferred tonnes at 1.31% TREO. The plant, housed in an existing industrial building and targeting 6,000 tonnes of ore over three years, is slated to start up in Q3 2027 with funding support from Innovation Norway, the Telemark Development Fund and EIT RawMaterials. Design changes include increasing the protective rock cover above underground openings from 25 m to 100 m, while a state-led zoning process aims to fix mine, plant, tailings and infrastructure locations by 2028.
Technical Brief
- Protective rock cover between underground workings and surface increased fourfold, from 25 m to 100 m.
- Resource update effective 31 December nearly doubled contained oxides to 15.9 million tonnes.
- Indicated resource now 123 Mt TREO, with neodymium–praseodymium oxides forming about 19% of TREO.
- Inferred resource totals 1.08 Bt at 1.31% TREO, containing 14.2 Mt rare earth oxides.
- Approximately 30,000 m of drill core logged and assayed, including 10,000 m from the latest campaign.
- Zoning process, taken over by Norway’s government in April, targets completion by 2028.
- National zoning will fix locations and conditions for underground mine, processing plant, tailings and associated infrastructure.
Our Take
With 19% of Fen’s rare earth oxides in NdPr, as highlighted in the March 2026 resource update, Rare Earths Norway is positioning this Norwegian asset in the same high-value magnet segment that LKAB’s Per Geijer project targets, which could sharpen competition for EU downstream magnet and motor manufacturers.
The roughly 80% jump in contained oxides at the Fen deposit since the earlier 2024 figure, referenced in our prior coverage, means the €24-million pilot is effectively de-risking flowsheet and permitting for what now screens as one of Europe’s larger rare earth inventories rather than a marginal test asset.
Norway’s backing via Innovation Norway and the Telemark Development Fund, combined with EIT RawMaterials’ EU-level involvement, signals that Fen is being treated as a strategic rare earths project for Europe, in contrast to many of the smaller rare earth items in our database that lack this kind of coordinated national–EU support.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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