Updated JORC-compliant Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) for Phalaborwa

• Updated MRE confirms a 15% increase in the overall size of the Phalaborwa Resource, adding an additional two years to the project life.
• Total Measured, Indicated and Inferred Resource of 35.0 Mt at 0.44% TREO, with a near doubling in the material now classified as Measured.
• The light rare earth elements (“REEs”) neodymium (“Nd”) and praseodymium (“Pd”) represent 29% and the heavy REEs dysprosium (“Dy”) and terbium (“Tb”) represent 1% and 0.3% respectively – all four of these REEs are considered critical minerals essential to the green energy transition.
• The MRE now reports the full range of recoverable REEs that may have economic value for Rainbow in the future, being the SEG group (samarium, europium and gadolinium), lanthanum (“La”) and cerium (“Ce”).
• At spot pricing, including Nd/Pr at ca. US$62.5/kg[1], the MRE has an in-situ metal oxide value of ca. US$3.7 billion REEs, with considerable upside based on the forecast strong demand outlook for permanent magnet REEs.

NEWS RELEASE

Further to the Resource Update released on 26 February 2024, today’s announcement reflects the publication of a new MRE for Phalaborwa prepared in accordance with the guidelines of the JORC Code (2012 Edition) (“JORC”). The full MRE can be accessed at https://www.rainbowrareearths.com/project/phalaborwa/.

As indicated in the February announcement, the application of updated bulk density estimates and additional drilling for the Phalaborwa phosphogypsum stacks has led to an increase in the Resource by 15% from 30.4 Mt to 35.0 Mt, reported at a 0.2% TREO cut-off grade. At projected production rates, this has extended the project life from 14 years to 16 years.

George Bennett, CEO of Rainbow, commented:

“The publication of an updated JORC-compliant Resource for Phalaborwa reaffirms the huge value intrinsic to this project, which contains economic quantities of all four of the critical magnet REEs. It also points to the potential for value from other recoverable REEs, which are currently not included in our project economics, and the MRE has an in-situ metal oxide value of ca. US$3.7 billion even at today’s lower spot prices. It’s worth noting that this is a very different type of Resource to that of a hard rock mining project, sitting at surface with a relatively homogenous distribution in the phosphogypsum stacks. Therefore, we intend to process the entirety of the stacks, allowing us to generate value from the full 35 Mt Resource.”

News in full

We caught up with CEO George Bennett at  the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town. He provided an update on Rainbow’s operations, but also tells about the many uses of rare earths and why they are so important in the global energy transition