Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd (LSE:RBW, OTC:RBWRF) has commenced key workstreams to advance the Phalaborwa rare earths project in South Africa to the definitive feasibility study stage.
The pilot plant design and setup are progressing in line with expectations, with commissioning to commence in the second quarter of 2023.
Work has started with South Africa's national, ISO-accredited mineral research organisation Mintek, to design and fabricate the front end of the plant, which will produce a high-value mixed rare earth sulphate.
The required back-end separation process continuous ion-exchange/continuous ion chromatography units have been delivered to K-Technologies' Lakeland facility for setup and testing.
High-value magnet rare earths neodymium and praseodymium represent 29% of the total rare earths in the basket. There are also economic quantities of dysprosium and terbium.
The company will undertake additional drilling to upgrade the resource further.
Rainbow expects that more accurate density measurements below the water table of the gypsum stacks at Phalaborwa will provide an opportunity to increase the total tonnage contained in the resource.
The project remains on track to reach production in 2026, five years after initial work commenced on site in 2021.
"Workstreams for Phalaborwa's DFS have commenced according to plan and the pilot plant is on track to commence operations this year, producing separated rare earth oxides, as part of the overall project timetable which envisages commercial production from 2026,” said Rainbow Rare Earths chief executive George Bennett in a statement.
“This is a remarkable fast-track for any rare earths development project globally, considering we commenced work at Phalaborwa in 2021. Successful operation of the pilot plant will give further confidence to our plans to leverage our proprietary technology, with the aim of targeting opportunities to produce rare earths from historic phosphogypsum stacks, or as a by-product of phosphoric acid production, on a global scale," he added.
He also noted that discussions with funding partners are progressing well.
A preliminary economic assessment for Phalaborwa was released in October 2022 showing the project to have a base case net present value of US$627mln.