Once a Soviet-era uranium processing plant,
the Silmet factory in Sillamäe, Estonia, is now
Europe’s leading processor of rare earths. Silmet’s mother
company, Toronto-headquartered Neo Preformance
Materials, aims to establish the continent’s first manufacturer
of high performance magnets for European consumers.
These “permanent magnets” have the potential to make a huge
impact in the European electric car and offshore wind-turbine
industries, which up until now were exclusively dependent on
supplies from an increasingly less reliable source – China.
By Isabelle de Pommereau in New Eastern Europe