Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd on Tuesday said that the front end of the Phalaborwa pilot plant in South Africa has successfully produced its first batch of mixed rare earth sulphate.

According to the South Africa and east Africa-focused rare earth oxide producer, the batch totalled around three kilogrammes.

Rainbow said this production achievement validates its successful development of a process flow sheet to recover rare earths from phosphogypsum stacks that occur as the by-product of phosphoric acid production.

Front-end pilot plant reagent consumption and overall recoveries of around 65% were in line with the expectations of the preliminary economic assessment.

Mixed rare earth sulphate will be used as feed for the back-end pilot plant built at K-Tech facilities in Florida for final processing into separated rare earth oxides. Meanwhile, the front-end pilot plant will run for an additional quarter to further optimise recoveries and cost-base.

‘This achievement not only de-risks Phalaborwa, it also opens up exciting opportunities for the Company to apply the proprietary technology to other similar phosphogypsum resources globally, including at the Mosaic Uberaba stack in Brazil,’ said Chief Executive Officer George Bennett.

‘We look forward to our final de-risking step, producing separated rare earth oxides in early Q4 2023 at the back-end pilot plant situated at K-Tech’s facilities in the USA. This will enable Rainbow to capture the full uplift in value by taking our product all the way through to separated rare earth oxides, with the overall positive impact on the company’s future revenue streams and profitability.’

Rainbow Rare Earths shares were trading 1.7% lower at 16.43 pence each in London on Tuesday afternoon.

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