London-listed Altona Rare Earths and Mozambique’s government are exploring the possibility of developing a rare-earths processing facility as the region seeks to add more value to its critical minerals.
Altona has a rare earths mining project at Monte Muambe in Tete province in northwest Mozambique. The potential to refine mined rare earths depends on individual deposits, and the company “wants to do as much in the country as the deposit will allow”, Altona’s new CEO Cédric Simonet tells The Africa Report.
Southern African countries have been seeking ways to capitalise on their critical mineral resources and move beyond their role as suppliers of unrefined raw materials.
Zimbabwe last year banned the export of unrefined spodumene used to make lithium. Namibia in June followed suit, and also banned exports of unrefined cobalt, manganese, graphite, and rare-earth elements.
Altona’s Joint Ore Reserve Committee (JORC) resource estimate and scoping study for Monte Muambe are due to be published in late August. Those steps will make it easier to start analysing the cost of a processing facility, Simonet says.
Corporate alliances will be key to getting such a project going. Simonet points to the joint venture created in Namibia in May by Namibia Critical Metals, E-Tech Resources, and Ondoto Rare Earth to conduct a feasibility study for a rare earth separation plant in Namibia as a path that Mozambique could follow. The Namibian approach “makes a lot of sense”, he says.
The Monte Muambe project area is 30km from a major tarred road linking Mozambique to Malawi and has railway access to the port of Nacala.
One way forward, Simonet says, would be for a regional processing facility drawing on feed from project operators in other countries in the region such as Tanzania and Malawi. “We will definitely talk to some of them and see if there is a way to develop a downstream facility.”
Such a project would require large amounts of imported chemicals, so a port would be essential, Simonet says. Mozambique, he says, has available candidate ports and “quite good” rail infrastructure, meaning there are “several sites” where a processing facility might be possible.
New projects
“Rare earths” is something of a misnomer as the group of 17 elements – needed in defence systems, mobile phones, and solar and wind power batteries – are globally widespread. But supply is dominated by China, which in 2021 produced almost 60% of total global mining output and 85% of the world’s rare earth refined products.
Altona, which previously traded on the UK’s Aquis stock exchange for growth companies, completed its listing on London Stock Exchange’s Main Market on 9 June. Simonet, previously chief operating officer, took over as CEO at the same time, replacing Christian Taylor-Wilkinson.
Altona has a 20% stake in the Monte Muambe project, which will rise to 51% after the resource estimate and scoping study. The holding can rise further to 70% depending on milestones in the coming years. Altona funds the exploration costs for the project, and has a board seat on the licence-owning company Monte Muambe Mining.
The company is also considering adding further rare earths projects in a “large array” of countries including Tanzania, Malawi, Angola, and Namibia. Simonet says that the company may add a project in the “near future”.
The African Report
