CMJ Daily Tape
EXPORT CONTROL | RARE EARTHS
DTEC has become the first company approved under Malaysia's new regulations to ship unprocessed rare earths to the United States, Shanghai Metals Market reported in its weekly rare earth wrap-up on November 2. The approval carries a cap of 700 mt, with an initial batch of about 30 mt for compositional analysis and separation testing. According to SMM, DTEC chief executive Perlly plans a refinery able to process 5,000 mt of raw material a year within three years, and two plants totaling 10,000 mt, with site talks under way in Kedah, Terengganu, Perak and Negeri Sembilan. SMM put ex-China Pr-Nd oxide at $115–121/kg FOB for the week, down $3/kg, with buyers on the sidelines.
Thirty tonnes is a test cargo, not supply. Unprocessed feed shipped for compositional analysis has to clear characterisation and separation trials before any US separator builds a circuit around it, and the whole 700 mt cap equals under two months of feed for the 5,000 mt a year refinery DTEC plans at home. The permit matters if US buyers qualify DTEC material before that refinery is built. If they do not, it is a sampling route.
PROCESSING | RARE EARTHS
Aclara Resources said on November 2 it has completed its first cooperative research agreement with Argonne National Laboratory, signed January 13, 2026. The work produced a validated steady-state model of the rare earth separation process for Project Dynamo, Aclara's planned plant in Vinton, Louisiana, calibrated with data from its demonstration plant in Blacksburg, Virginia. The model predicts each element's concentration in every one of the plant's 478 mixer-settler stages. Under Phase I of the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, the partners plan a dynamic model and an AI agent for operators.
A steady-state model is the easy half. A 478-stage solvent extraction train is judged on how it behaves when feed grade shifts or a stage upsets, and that is the dynamic work Phase I has yet to start, with the award agreement still being finalised. For magnet makers qualifying Dynamo oxide, what matters is the time from first feed to stable on-spec product. The model earns its keep only if it shortens that commissioning curve.
LOGISTICS | URANIUM
Lotus Resources said on November 2 that its first shipment of uranium ore concentrate has left the Kayelekera mine in Malawi: four containers holding about 145,000 lb of U3O8, bound for the Port of Walvis Bay in Namibia. Shipping is booked for a November departure, with delivery to Orano CE Malvési in France expected by the end of the calendar year. Managing director Greg Bittar called the despatch one of the final steps toward delivering product to customers and generating revenue. More shipments are expected before year-end.
Despatch is not yet a sale. The 145,000 lb moves by container to Walvis Bay, waits for a November sailing and reaches the converter only by year-end, so the first point at which Orano can book the material falls in the last weeks of the year. Every later shipment repeats that corridor. For a mine still ramping up, the gap between leaving the gate and acceptance at Malvési is working capital Lotus has to carry.
GOVERNMENT FUNDING | NUCLEAR FUEL
ARPA-E, part of the US Department of Energy, selected eight projects to share up to $50 million under its HORNIG programme, which funds technologies that recycle transuranic elements from used nuclear fuel into fissile material for advanced reactors, World Nuclear News reported on November 2. Westinghouse, Standard Nuclear, Oregon State University and Idaho National Laboratory receive $7 million each, Oklo $6.8 million and Texas A&M University $5.4 million. ARPA-E says the projects aim to cut fuel qualification timelines from decades to less than seven years.
The binding constraint is qualification, not money. On ARPA-E's own target, a transuranic fuel funded today still needs up to seven years of qualification before it loads into a commercial reactor, and the awards fund design and testing, not commercial fuel supply. Standard Nuclear pitches its TRISO fuel as an alternative to high-assay low-enriched uranium. For HALEU buyers signing supply contracts now, that substitution is a next-decade option, not a hedge.
