Rainbow Rare Earths (RBW) CEO George Bennett was delighted to announce the first successful production of mixed rare earth sulphates from the Phalaborwa front-end pilot plant at the grades and economics published in the PEA (Preliminary Economic Assessment).
In an interview with Donald Leggatt he explained that this further derisks the Phalaborwa gypsum stacks project and definitively evidences that the Phalaborwa Process Flow Sheet works at scale – and has great commercial potential for other similar projects such as Mosaic in Brazil.
Front-end pilot plant at Phalaborwa
“We are removing rare earths from phosphogypsum stacks and recovering 4 key rare earth metals at a very high grade, creating a mixed rare sulphate, something quite unique” said George.
A mixed rare earth sulphate is a saleable product in it’s own right, at about 60% payability on the market. Rainbow, just based on the mixed sulphate product as a standalone project can be very, very profitable explained George.
Back-end Pilot Plant in Florida
“But we are not stopping there: we are shipping the sulphate to K-Tech in Florida where we have built a jointly-owned back-end pilot plant where we will produce separated rare earth products, capturing 100% of the finished product and 100% of the payability price on the open markets”.
This now gives Rainbow the flexibility to do the full separation on a commercial scale in the United States. “Now we need to look at the advantages of doing this in the US, which includes IRS tax subsidies and cheaper funding”.
George was keen to emphasise this allows Rainbow to help create an independent supply chain which the US Government is keen to roll out ex-China. “We have the US Government as an [indirect] investor in Rainbow so it makes sense to potentially locate the back end there as well.”
Rainbow Rare Earths (RBW)