Rainbow Rare Earths Limited (LON:RBW) expects to commission a new processing plant at the Gakara mine in Burundi later this month, after which the scale of mining should pick up sharply.
The plant is now running as designed, said Rainbow, and final adjustments have been completed.
WATCH: Rainbow Rare Earths focused on upping production at Gakara mine in Burundi
Up until the end of December, 270 tonnes of material had been manually mined but with new plant Rainbow has a target of shipping 400 tonnes per month by the end of this year and 500 tonnes per month in 2019.
Exploration drilling is also scheduled to begin in April to understand the anomalies identified by an airborne survey in 2017.
READ: New exploration at Gakara could be transformative for Rainbow Rare Earths
If successful, a second phase drilling campaign will follow and lead ultimately to a maiden JORC resource later this year.
So far, Rainbow has made three shipments of concentrates but revenues were not consolidated into the interim numbers to December.
Losses were US$1.1mln for the half-year while cash balances at the year-end were US$2.7mln.
Broker Arden added: "We see short-term volatility in rare earth prices but long-term demand for rare earths remains strong, stemming from a decrease in Chinese production due to environmental controls and demand driven by increased permanent magnet use from Electric Vehicles (EVS) and clean energy demand.
"These are key components of permanent magnets in electric motors and generators used in EVs (c.100+ electric motors per EV) and Wind Turbines."
-- adds broker comment--