Australian rare earths miner Greenland Minerals and Energy Limited announced on Monday it has entered into a memorandum of understanding with China Non‐Ferrous Metal Industry to push the development of the Kvanefjeld Project in Greenland.

Shares in Greenland on Monday closed to 18.5 cents, up four cents, or 27.59 per cent.

The MoU specifically sets out a framework for both parties to cooperate in aligning the rare earth concentrates from Greenland Minerals' Kvanefjeld Project, with NFC's substantial rare earth separation experience and capacity, to create a powerful force in global rare earth supply.

NFC said the rare earths plant will be "one of the world's newest, largest-capacity and most technologically advanced rare earth separation facilities."

The Kvanefjeld Project, located in southern Greenland, holds one of the world's largest resources of both rare earth elements and uranium. It has an overall resource inventory of 956 million tonnes containing 575 million pounds of U3O8, 10.33 million tonnes of total rare earth oxides and 2.25 million tonnes of zinc. It also has the potential to compete with the Olympic Dam project of rival BHP Billiton in South Australia. It has an expected mine life of more than 50 years.

"Studies conducted to date indicate the potential to develop Kvanefjeld as a cost-competitive, long-life operation that will produce rare earth concentrates, uranium oxide, zinc concentrate and fluorspar," the company said.

Greenland Minerals said the non-binding deal comes after three years of numerous meetings and technical due-diligence.