18 January 2024

Rainbow Rare Earths Limited

("Rainbow" or "the Company")

LSE: RBW

U.S. Congressional Staff Delegation hosted at Phalaborwa

·    Site visit for U.S. Congressional staff delegation further to the recent US$50 million investment commitment directly into the Phalaborwa project from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation ("DFC") via TechMet Limited ("TechMet")

·    Rainbow's Phalaborwa project identified as a strategic and near-term source of critical rare earths

NEWS RELEASE

Rainbow Rare Earths recently welcomed a U.S. Congressional staff delegation to the Phalaborwa rare earths development project in South Africa for a site visit.

The visit follows the recent announcement by the DFC that it would be committing funding of US$50 million to TechMet for direct investment into Phalaborwa. This announcement was made on 3 December 2023 at COP28, the United Nation's Climate Change Conference, demonstrating the global effort to responsibly scale production of the metals essential for clean energy technologies. The four rare earths that will be produced at Phalaborwa - neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium - are all designated as critical minerals further to their important role in the transition to the green economy.

George Bennett, CEO of Rainbow, commented: "We were delighted to host a bipartisan delegation of U.S. Congressional staffers to site over the Christmas holiday period, which further confirms the interest Phalaborwa is receiving from the highest levels in the U.S. Government. Phalaborwa is rightly gaining traction as an important and strategic source of all four of the critical rare earths required for the green energy transition, as well as other next generation technologies, including those essential to defence and national security."

The delegation welcomed at site comprised Joe Foltz, Staff Director, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, Jimmy Walsh, a Senior Professional Staff Member, Brendan Ramsay, Staff Director, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Minority, Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, and David Freeman, First Secretary, Environment, Science, Technology, Health, and Minerals at the U.S. Embassy Pretoria. 

The delegation at Phalaborwa. From left to right: David Freeman, Jimmy Walsh, George Bennett, Joe Foltz, Brendan Ramsay.

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Notes to Editors:

About Rainbow:

Rainbow Rare Earths aims to be a forerunner in the establishment of an independent and ethical supply chain of the rare earth elements that are driving the green energy transition. It is doing this successfully via the identification and development of secondary rare earth deposits that can be brought into production quicker and at a lower cost than traditional hard rock mining projects, with a focus on the permanent magnet rare earth elements neodymium and praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.

The Company is focused on the development of the Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project in South Africa and the earlier stage Uberaba Project in Brazil. Both projects entail the recovery of rare earths from phosphogypsum stacks that occur as the by-product of phosphoric acid production, with the original source rock for both deposits being a hardrock carbonatite. Rainbow intends to use a proprietary separation technique developed by and in conjunction with its partner K-Technologies, Inc., which simplifies the process of producing separated rare earth oxides (versus traditional solvent extraction), leading to cost and environmental benefits.

The Phalaborwa Preliminary Economic Assessment has confirmed strong base line economics for the project, which has a base case NPV₁₀ of US$627 million[1], an average EBITDA operating margin of 75% and a payback period of < two years. Pilot plant operations commenced in 2023, with the project expected to reach commercial production in 2026, just five years after work began on the project by Rainbow.

More information is available at www.rainbowrareearths.com.