Vital Metals CEO resigns after just 4 months; Ucore adds former Vital top executive to its growing team.

With former Vital Metals Ltd. Managing Director Geoff Atkins joining the team at Ucore Rare Metals Inc. and John Dorward tendering his resignation as director and CEO of Vital, this week saw a carousel of executive changes at rare earths companies with ties to the North of 60 Mining area.

Under Atkins' leadership, Vital transformed the Nechalacho deposit in Northwest Territories into Canada's first rare earths mine in just two years. He accomplished this quick ramp up to production with his vision of using an ore sorter to upgrade already high-grade, near-surface ore at Nechalacho to a product ready to ship to Saskatchewan for processing.

Without the need for a complex ore processing facility, the Nechalacho Mine is something akin to a gravel quarry – simply mine and crush near surface rock and sort out the best material to be transported.

After ramping up initial production, Vital secured an AU$45 million (US$31.6 million) financing, which was anchored by AU$30 million (US$21 million) contributed by Lionhead Resources Fund, to expand operations

However, it seems that Atkins' vision of incrementally scaling up production at Nechalacho and Lionhead's strategy to immediately focus on the much larger but lower-grade deposit at the Northwest Territories operation did not align.

Shortly following the Vital financing, Atkins resigned, and Lionhead partner Russell Bradford filled the top executive position on an interim basis.

In November, John Dorward, a mining executive that most recently served as president and CEO of Canada-based Roxgold Inc., was named Vital's new managing director and CEO.

Only four months after accepting the position, Dorward has turned in his resignation as a director, effective immediately, and gave the rare earths company a three-month notice that he is stepping down as CEO.

"John has worked with the board and management team over the past few months to develop a new strategy for the business, which the management team will continue to implement, with a stronger focus on developing the Tardiff deposit at Nechalacho," said Richard Crooks, interim chairman of Vital Metals.

Last month, Vital announced that the Tardiff deposit now hosts 119 million metric tons of resources averaging 1.4% (1.67 million metric tons or 3.7 billion pounds) total rare earth oxides.

Vital is now carrying out an international search for a new CEO with experience that can help drive the company's strategy of developing this enormous resource into a much larger mine.

More information on Vital's plans at Nechalacho can be read at A Vital pivot in rare earths strategy in the January 6, 2023 edition of North of 60 Mining News.

Atkins joins growing Ucore team

During his time at Vital, Atkins got to know the executive team at Ucore through business relations between the two companies.

Toward the end of 2021, Vital cut a deal to utilize Ucore's future Strategic Metals Complex, or SMC, to separate the mixed rare earths carbonates produced at Vital's Saskatchewan plant into the individual REEs in high demand for electric vehicle motors and a wide array of high-tech and household goods.

"This agreement is an important and exciting entrance into the North American downstream rare earth supply chain," Atkins said at the time. "We are particularly excited that ... Ucore represents the most advanced new rare earth separation company entering into the North American market."

At the time, Ucore's first SMC was planned to be built in Ketchikan, a Southeast Alaska town about 35 miles from Ucore's Bokan Mountain rare earths deposit.

Louisiana's offer of $10 million in economic incentives, along with quicker permitting of already established industrial sites on the Gulf of Mexico, however, lured Ucore and its proprietary rare earths separation technology away from Alaska.

More information on Ucore's decision to build its first SMC in Louisiana can be read at Ucore's Alaska 2023 is now Louisiana 2024 in the October 17, 2022 edition of our sister publication, Metal Tech News.

Now, Atkins will serve as vice president of business development at Ucore and be directly involved with helping to ramp up the company's commercial rare earth separation business in North America.

Before his time at Vital, Atkins was involved with Lynas Corp.'s development of the Mt. Weld rare earths mine in Australia and oversaw construction at Lynas' rare earths processing plant in Malaysia, making him one of the best connected rare earths executives outside of China.

Ucore says this experience makes Atkins uniquely qualified to lead its North American SMC feedstock acquisition efforts.

Ucore has also strengthened its team with the addition of Jaan Hurditch as engineering director, and Ahmad Hussein as an advisory board member and government liaison.

Hurditch previously worked at Innovation Metals Corp., a company Ucore acquired to gain ownership of the RapidSX rare earths separation technology. During his time at IMC, Huditch was a driving force behind developing and scaling up the RapidSX technology that is being commissioned in Ontario, Canada, and will be deployed commercially at Ucore's Louisiana SMC.

Geoff Atkins

Hussein, who has had international success in the renewable energy sector, is cultivating strategic relationships with Canadian and U.S. government agencies that are slated to award billions of dollars over the remainder of the decade toward essential North American critical minerals projects.

"One of the key pillars of our business model includes building the right team to execute a fundamentally sound economic business plan underpinned by the best available technology," said Ucore Rare Metals Chairman and CEO Pat Ryan. "The recent additions to the Ucore team allow the company to strengthen and advance this fundamental corporate tenet as Ucore executes its transition to a technology company entering into a production environment throughout 2023 and 2024."

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Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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