Company News

June 15, 2020

U.S. Rare Earths Plant

U.S. Strengthens Its Rare Earth Supply Chain With New Processing Plant

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USA Rare Earth, the funding and development partner of the Round Top heavy rare earth project and Texas Mineral Resources announced Thursday that its rare earths pilot plant processing facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado has received the required permits and officially opened.

Once fully commissioned, the plant will be focused on group separation of rare earths into heavy (dysprosium, terbium), middle, and light (neodymium, praseodymium) rare earths (REE’s) and will be the first facility to separate the full range of rare earth elements in the US since 1999.

USA Rare Earth’s pilot plant is the second link in a 100% US-based rare earth oxide supply chain, drawing on feedstock from its Round Top deposit.

The final phase of the pilot work will be the further separation of high-purity individual REE compounds. The pilot plant will also be focused on the recovery of non-REEs focusing on lithium, uranium, beryllium, gallium, zirconium, hafnium, and aluminum, all of which are on the US Government Critical Minerals List.

Confirming the recovery of these critical non-REEs will support upgrading the measured and indicated resources to proven and probable reserves (with no in-fill drilling required), and completion of the Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS) for the Round Top project, the company said.

“Establishing an independent domestic rare earth and critical minerals supply chain is monumental for USA Rare Earth and for the United States, overcoming reliance on China for materials and processing that are essential for defense applications and advanced technology manufacturing,” said Pini Althaus, USA Rare Earth CEO.

Althaus also said the opening is another step forward for USA Rare Earth’s objective to build the first rare earth and critical minerals processing facility outside China and to bring the Round Top project into full commercial production – which they estimate to be in 30 months.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Strengthens-Its-Rare-Earth-Supply-Chain-With-New-Processing-Plant.html?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=tw_repost

June 15, 2020

U.S. Rare Earths Plant

U.S. Strengthens Its Rare Earth Supply Chain With New Processing Plant

Join Our Community

USA Rare Earth, the funding and development partner of the Round Top heavy rare earth project and Texas Mineral Resources announced Thursday that its rare earths pilot plant processing facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado has received the required permits and officially opened.

Once fully commissioned, the plant will be focused on group separation of rare earths into heavy (dysprosium, terbium), middle, and light (neodymium, praseodymium) rare earths (REE’s) and will be the first facility to separate the full range of rare earth elements in the US since 1999.

USA Rare Earth’s pilot plant is the second link in a 100% US-based rare earth oxide supply chain, drawing on feedstock from its Round Top deposit.

The final phase of the pilot work will be the further separation of high-purity individual REE compounds. The pilot plant will also be focused on the recovery of non-REEs focusing on lithium, uranium, beryllium, gallium, zirconium, hafnium, and aluminum, all of which are on the US Government Critical Minerals List.

Confirming the recovery of these critical non-REEs will support upgrading the measured and indicated resources to proven and probable reserves (with no in-fill drilling required), and completion of the Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS) for the Round Top project, the company said.

“Establishing an independent domestic rare earth and critical minerals supply chain is monumental for USA Rare Earth and for the United States, overcoming reliance on China for materials and processing that are essential for defense applications and advanced technology manufacturing,” said Pini Althaus, USA Rare Earth CEO.

Althaus also said the opening is another step forward for USA Rare Earth’s objective to build the first rare earth and critical minerals processing facility outside China and to bring the Round Top project into full commercial production – which they estimate to be in 30 months.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Strengthens-Its-Rare-Earth-Supply-Chain-With-New-Processing-Plant.html?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=tw_repost

June 11, 2020

Apollo vs Serta Simmons

Leon Black’s Apollo to go to war over Serta Simmons debt deal, sources say

June 11, 2020 | 3:25pm

Billionaire Leon Black wants to go to the mat with America’s largest mattress maker.

Black’s Apollo Global Management — together with investment firms Angelo Gordon and Gamut Capital — is gearing up to sue Serta Simmons over its efforts to lower its $2.4 billion debt stack through a refinancing because it never agreed to the deal, The Post has learned.

Legal papers will be filed as soon as this week in New York State Supreme Court seeking injunctive relief to stop the refinancing, which comes as the privately held mattress maker struggles with sagging sales made worse by the coronavirus, sources said.

The defendants will include Serta Simmons, its private equity owner Advent International and investment firms Eaton Vance, Invesco and Credit Suisse Asset Management, the sources said.

At issue is Serta Simmon’s announcement this week that it has come to a deal with a majority of its senior and junior lenders to borrow an additional $200 million while also reducing its massive debt pile by $400 million through a refinancing.

Apollo, Angelo Gordon and Gamut — who recently bought about one-third of Serta’s $1.95 billion in senior debt at a deep discount — are expected to claim that they didn’t agree to the deal in violation of the company’s credit agreements.

Companies normally require all senior lenders to agree to any loan modifications, including a refinancing and lawyers for the angry investors plan to argue that if allowed to proceed, the refinancing will endanger the $2 trillion credit market by allowing companies to pit senior lenders against each other when angling for better loan terms or more capital.

“This could really upend the $2 trillion banking market,” a source close to the case said.

Serta Simmons didn’t immediately return a request for comment. Advent declined to comment.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/apollo-global-to-go-to-war-over-serta-simmons-debt-deal-sources-say/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

June 11, 2020

Apollo vs Serta Simmons

Leon Black’s Apollo to go to war over Serta Simmons debt deal, sources say

June 11, 2020 | 3:25pm

Billionaire Leon Black wants to go to the mat with America’s largest mattress maker.

Black’s Apollo Global Management — together with investment firms Angelo Gordon and Gamut Capital — is gearing up to sue Serta Simmons over its efforts to lower its $2.4 billion debt stack through a refinancing because it never agreed to the deal, The Post has learned.

Legal papers will be filed as soon as this week in New York State Supreme Court seeking injunctive relief to stop the refinancing, which comes as the privately held mattress maker struggles with sagging sales made worse by the coronavirus, sources said.

The defendants will include Serta Simmons, its private equity owner Advent International and investment firms Eaton Vance, Invesco and Credit Suisse Asset Management, the sources said.

At issue is Serta Simmon’s announcement this week that it has come to a deal with a majority of its senior and junior lenders to borrow an additional $200 million while also reducing its massive debt pile by $400 million through a refinancing.

Apollo, Angelo Gordon and Gamut — who recently bought about one-third of Serta’s $1.95 billion in senior debt at a deep discount — are expected to claim that they didn’t agree to the deal in violation of the company’s credit agreements.

Companies normally require all senior lenders to agree to any loan modifications, including a refinancing and lawyers for the angry investors plan to argue that if allowed to proceed, the refinancing will endanger the $2 trillion credit market by allowing companies to pit senior lenders against each other when angling for better loan terms or more capital.

“This could really upend the $2 trillion banking market,” a source close to the case said.

Serta Simmons didn’t immediately return a request for comment. Advent declined to comment.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/apollo-global-to-go-to-war-over-serta-simmons-debt-deal-sources-say/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

June 5, 2020

Dow to Recycle Mattresses into Polyol

The Renuva mattress recycling programme sets out to recycle PU foam from end-of-life mattresses into polyol. (Source: Dow)

03. June 2020

Dow: Industrial scale production facility will recycle end-of-life mattresses into polyols

Dow Polyurethanes, a business division of Dow, announced a breakthrough in its Renuva mattress recycling programme with a plan to install a pioneering industrial scale production facility at Orrion Chemicals Orgaform in Semoy, France. This new development builds on Dow’s existing collaboration with process know-how and turnkey installations provider H&S Anlagentechnik, announced in 2017.

The mattress recycling programme will take discarded mattress foam and turn it back into raw material (polyol) through chemical recycling. The new raw material can then be used in flexible or rigid polyurethane foam products to go into applications such as building insulation boards and even back into new mattresses. The installation is expected to take place during the second half of 2020, with the first batch of Renuva polyols expected to be delivered in the first half of 2021.

According to Dow Polyurethanes, every year around 30 million mattresses are thrown away in Europe. If they were all stacked up, the pile would be 678 times the height of Mount Everest (assuming an average mattress height of 20 cm – height of Mount Everest is 8,848 m). This new initiative will help enable a more circular economy for polyurethanes by ensuring the applications they are used in can be recycled, and it can help the EU reach its goal of having 65 % of municipal waste recycled by 2030, said the company.

“At Dow we’re passionate about integrating sustainability into all aspects of the Polyurethane lifecycle. This development will represent a significant step towards achieving circularity for a product which traditionally poses significant challenges for recycling,” said Ana Carolina Haracemiv, commercial director for Europe, Middle East, Africa, India (EMEAI), Dow Polyurethanes.

“Through Renuva our ambition is to address some of the circular economy goals set out in the EU’s Green Deal and in national waste management strategies of countries like France,” stated Marcel Moeller, global marketing and sustainability director, Dow Polyurethanes.

“This new cooperation will reinforce Orrion Chemicals Orgaform’s commitment to sustainable development,” said Christian Siest, president, Orrion Chemicals Orgaform. “We will be proud to build an industrial scale production unit for recycling end-of-life foam and be selected as a partner by Dow. This will be a major investment that fits the growth strategy of our company.”

www.dow.com/renuva

https://www.gupta-verlag.com/news/industry/24176/dow-industrial-scale-production-facility-will-recycle-end-of-life-mattresses-into-polyols