Business
Pilot Plant Update
Pilot Plant Update.
About this update from Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd.
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n\n19 June 2024\nRainbow Rare Earths Limited\n(\"Rainbow\" or \"the Company\")\nLSE: RBW\n \nPilot Plant Update\nLatest results support expectation that Phalaborwa will be one of the lowest cost magnet rare earth projects in development today\n· Primary pilot plant campaign in South Africa ran for an extended period allowing for key optimisation opportunities, with expected resultant benefits to capital and operating costs\n· Separation pilot plant campaign in USA is ongoing - separation of Nd/Pr has now reached over 95% purity via an optimised first stage chromatography step, with the process expected to reach the targeted purity of 99.5%\n· Piloting campaign to date supports our expectation that Phalaborwa will be a low-cost producer of separated rare earth oxides in comparison to the global peer group\n· As part of the work to deliver the DFS in H1 2025, Rainbow plans to release an interim report in H2 2024 to update the economics of the Phalaborwa project reflecting the optimisations delivered from the pilot test work campaigns, footprinted against the Preliminary Economic Assessment (\"PEA\"), and to allow for commencement of project financing\n \nNEWS RELEASE\nRainbow is pleased to announce an update with regards to the pilot plant operations for the Phalaborwa rare earths development project in South Africa.\nThe project's pilot plant incorporates the primary campaign, which processes the material to produce a mixed rare earth carbonate (\"MREC\"), based at the Johannesburg facilities of the Council for Mineral Technology (\"Mintek\"), a global leader in mineral processing, extractive metallurgy, and related fields. The final separation stage pilot plant refines the material further into separated rare earth oxides; this work is ongoing in Florida, USA.\nPrimary pilot plant - Johannesburg, South Africa\nExcellent results have been achieved on the large scale, continuous pilot plant at Mintek, serving to confirm the basic process flowsheet originally set out in the PEA.\nThe primary pilot plant campaign was extended to run for 70 days in order to take advantage of key optimisation opportunities that became evident during the operation.\nThe key findings from the primary pilot plant campaign are:\n· The overall recovery of ra...