Mineral sands producer Base Resources is setting up its Toliara project, in Madagascar, as potentially one of the biggest and most cost-competitive sources of rare earth oxides globally by exploiting the project's contained monazite.
A prefeasibility study (PFS) focusing on monazite demonstrates that the tails from the mineral sands processing planned under the Toliara mineral sands definitive feasibility study can be upgraded to a monazite product for a model additional capital expenditure of $71-million.
“Put simply, the outcomes from our monazite PFS reinforce our belief that Toliara is the best undeveloped mineral sands project in the world. Unsurprisingly, adding another critical mineral stream through concentrating what would otherwise have been “waste” from the mineral sands processing has materially improved the forecast financial performance of the project,” said MD Tim Carstens.
With an incremental net present value (NPV) of $1-billion, the monazite PFS has doubled the Toliara project’s overall NPV to $2-billion. The monazite study has an internal rate of return of 79% and an average revenue to cost of sales ratio of 7.9, over an initial 38-year mine life.
The study determined that Toliara can produce an average of 21 800 t/y of monazite, containing 2 800 t/y of neodymium and praseodymium.
Carstens also said that Base was confident that acceptable fiscal terms could be secured that would support development of the Toliara project. The company would resume discussions with the newly formed government early in the new year, he added.