Got this out the way - now bring on that JORC22 Jun 2020 16:56
22 June 2020
Rainbow Rare Earths Limited
("Rainbow" or the "Company") (LSE: RBW)
Placing of New Ordinary Shares raises £1.25 million at 3p per share
Rainbow, the high-grade rare earth producer, is pleased to announce that it has conditionally issued 41,666,667 new ordinary shares of no par value each ("Ordinary Shares") in the Company at a price of 3p per Ordinary Share (the "Placing Price") thereby raising gross proceeds of £1.25 million (the "Placing"). The Placing Price represents a 3.4% premium to the closing mid-market share price of 2.9p per ordinary share on 19th June 2020.
The 41,666,667 Ordinary Shares issued at the Placing Price includes:
· £1,114,149 of cash receipts representing 37,138,284 Ordinary Shares
· £76,038 of fees due to the Company's non-executive directors for the period from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2020, which has been converted to equity representing 2,534,604 Ordinary Shares (the "Salary Shares"), and
· The conversion of US$75,000 (£59,813) of the loan received from the Company's CEO in February 2020 into 1,993,779 Ordinary Shares (the "Loan Shares").
Reasons for the Placing
The placing proceeds will be used for general working capital purposes including capital additions to the Company's trial mining fleet and pilot processing plant at the Gakara Rare Earth Project (the "Gakara Project") in Burundi to accelerate the trial mining operations.
The Company continues to focus trial mining on the Murambi area to demonstrate the continuity of both the strength of mineralisation and the simple nature of the mineralogy for production of a high-grade rare earth concentrate suitable for direct shipment. To date, Rainbow has produced and shipped 1,600 tonnes of high-grade concentrate from the Gakara Project with an average grade of 57% total rare earth oxides of which over 19% represents high value Neodymium and Praseodymium oxide used for the manufacture of permanent magnets. Significant volumes of these permanent magnets are necessary for the expected growth in both electric vehicle and wind turbine production, along with other industrial uses, underpinning the inherent value of Rainbow's Gakara Project.
Rainbow is expecting the finalisation of a maiden JORC (2012) compliant resource statement for the Gakara Project within the coming weeks, which will mark an important milestone for the Company. This will allow the Company to further define the capital requirements for both exploration to grow the resource and further trial mining to demonstrate the continuity of minerology. The understanding of the resource base from both exploration and trial mining will allow a technical study to be completed for the expansion of the operations at the Gakara Project to a commercial scale.
In parallel, Rainbow continues to explore options for further downstream processing of the high grade Gakara concentrate to a higher value mixed rare earth carbonate or individual rare earth oxides which wil