Century Lithium's Rare Earth Find: A New Force in Critical Minerals

VANCOUVER, BC – December 02, 2025 – In a move that could significantly alter the landscape for aspiring North American critical mineral producers, Century Lithium Corp. has announced a pivotal technical breakthrough at its Angel Island project in Nevada. The company has successfully demonstrated a method to recover high-value rare earth elements (REEs) from the same solutions used to extract lithium, effectively creating a powerful secondary revenue stream from a single resource. For investors and industry leaders, this isn't just a technical update; it's a strategic masterstroke that could de-risk the project's financing, enhance its long-term value, and position the company as a uniquely diversified supplier in the race for domestic resource independence.

Beyond Lithium: A Strategic By-Product Emerges

Century Lithium's announcement goes far beyond a simple process optimization. The company reported that its ion-exchange test work achieved a recovery rate of over 97% for a suite of valuable REEs and critical metals contained within its lithium-bearing claystone leach solutions. Crucially, this was accomplished with complete selectivity, meaning the primary lithium recovery process remains unaffected. This dual-extraction capability transforms the project's fundamental value proposition.

The list of recovered elements reads like a checklist for the green energy transition. It includes neodymium and praseodymium, essential components for the high-strength permanent magnets in electric vehicle (EV) motors and wind turbines. It also includes dysprosium, a heavy rare earth that enhances the performance of these magnets at high temperatures and whose price has soared in recent years due to supply constraints. Furthermore, the solutions contain scandium, a high-value metal used to create lightweight, high-strength aluminum alloys for the aerospace and automotive industries. The presence of these elements turns what was once considered waste or a minor impurity into a significant asset.

"The REE recovery results validate our belief that Century Lithium's leach solutions offer meaningful secondary-value opportunities," said Todd Fayram, the company's Senior Vice President of Metallurgy. "Producing a secondary REE-rich product has the potential to strengthen Angel Island's economics and align the Company with broader government and industry initiatives supporting secure North American critical-minerals supply chains."

The Technical Edge: De-Risking Claystone Extraction

Extracting lithium from sedimentary claystone has historically been viewed as more technically complex and costly than from traditional brines or hard-rock spodumene. Century Lithium's core strategy has been to overcome this challenge with a patent-pending chloride leaching and direct lithium extraction (DLE) process. The successful integration of REE recovery represents a major validation of this technology-forward approach.

The use of ion-exchange technology to separate REEs is not new, but its application to selectively pull valuable metals from a complex lithium-rich solution without degrading the primary product recovery is a significant innovation. This demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the project's unique metallurgy and creates a blueprint for maximizing value from unconventional resources. By proving that two distinct, high-demand product streams can be generated from one integrated process, the company has mitigated a key technical risk and created a substantial competitive advantage. This efficiency—less waste, more product—is precisely the kind of innovation needed to make North American mining projects more economically and environmentally sustainable.

Recalibrating Angel Island's Economics

The financial implications of this development are profound. The Angel Island project is already substantial, with plans for a 40-year mine life producing an average of 34,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate per year. While the company has yet to release an updated economic study, the addition of an REE by-product stream is poised to dramatically enhance the project's financial metrics.

Revenue from high-priced elements like dysprosium, which has seen prices climb towards $800/kg, and neodymium, a magnet workhorse, could provide a significant buffer against potential fluctuations in the lithium market. This revenue diversification fundamentally de-risks the project for potential financiers and strategic partners. A robust secondary income stream could lower the project's payback period and increase its net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR), making it a far more attractive investment. For a development-stage company like Century Lithium, which is currently navigating the capital-intensive permitting and construction phases, demonstrating such a strengthened economic case is a critical step toward securing the necessary project financing.

A New Player in the Geopolitical Chess Match

This breakthrough arrives at a critical moment in the global push for secure critical mineral supply chains. The United States and its allies remain heavily dependent on foreign nations, primarily China, for both processed lithium and the full suite of rare earth elements. This dependence is widely seen as a significant economic and national security vulnerability. Projects that can contribute to a domestic, mine-to-market supply chain are therefore of immense strategic importance.

Century Lithium's Angel Island is now positioned to become a rare example of a single project that can supply materials for both the battery and the motor of an electric vehicle. This puts the company in a unique position relative to other North American players. While companies like MP Materials are rebuilding the U.S. rare earths industry from a dedicated REE mine, and various lithium developers are focused solely on battery metals, Century Lithium is charting a path to do both. This integrated model not only promises economic efficiencies but also offers a consolidated, domestic source for multiple critical inputs, amplifying its strategic value to automakers, technology manufacturers, and government agencies.

The path forward still requires navigating Nevada's rigorous permitting process and scaling the dual-extraction technology from the demonstration plant to full production. However, under the leadership of President and CEO Dr. William Willoughby, Century Lithium has successfully transformed its investment thesis. The company is no longer just a lithium developer; it is an emerging, multi-commodity critical minerals producer with a technical edge that could set a new standard for resource extraction in North America.