Name of the Project
Kasiya Critical Minerals project.

Location
Lilongwe district, in the Central Region of Malawi. 

Project Owner/s
Sovereign Metals Limited. 

Project Description
Kasiya is a large-scale critical minerals project that reportedly hosts the world’s largest natural rutile deposit and the second-largest flake graphite deposit. 

The April 2026 definitive feasibility study (DFS) outlines an initial 25-year mine life, based on total ore mined of 536-million tonnes, with steady-state production of 222 000 t/y of rutile grading more than 95% titanium dioxide and 275 000 t of graphite grading 96% total graphitic content. 

The project will be developed as a dry-mined openpit operation using draglines and 100 t rigid dump trucks. The soft, free-dig saprolite orebody requires no drilling, blasting, crushing or milling. 

Mining will be undertaken in two benches, comprising a 5 m top cut and a bottom cut of up to 15 m, with the selected mining method aimed at keeping draglines above the water table.

Processing will be undertaken through a staged dual-plant configuration. A 12-million-tonne-a-year south plant is planned for Years 1 to 4, with a second 12-million-tonne-a-year north plant to be added from Year 5, lifting total plant throughput to 24-million tonnes a year. Ore will be scrubbed and screened before entering a wet concentrator plant, where gravity separation will produce a heavy mineral concentrate. 

This concentrate will then be treated using a mineral separation plant, with electrostatic and magnetic separation to produce rutile, while graphite-rich concentrate recovered from the spirals will be processed in a dedicated flotation plant to produce a high-purity, coarse-flake graphite product.

The DFS notes that all tailings are planned to be returned to mined-out pits through hydraulic co-disposal backfilling, eliminating the need for a conventional tailings storage facility. 

Products will be exported along the Nacala Logistics Corridor to the Port of Nacala.

A September 2026 scoping study has confirmed the potential to recover monazite rare-earth concentrate as a by-product from mineral streams already generated by the DFS flowsheet. The study envisages steady-state production of about 2 626 t/y of concentrate containing 1 485 t/y of total rare-earth oxides over a potential 23-year operating period. No additional mining or front-end processing will be required.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The DFS reports a real pretax net present value (NPV), at an 8% discount rate, of $2.2-billion and a pretax internal rate of return (IRR) of 23.4%. The payback is estimated at 6.2 years from the start of production, based on unlevered, pretax cash flow.

The rare earths scoping study estimates that the additional product stream could increase pretax NPV, at an 8% discount rate, by about $722-million. It estimates an incremental pretax IRR of about 151% and a payback period of about 1.5 years. The combined rutile, graphite and rare earths development has an estimated pretax NPV of about $2.9-billion.

Capital Expenditure
Capital expenditure to first production is estimated at $727-million. 

The scoping study estimates that an additional $29-million will be required to build the monazite recovery circuit.

Planned Start/End Date
No official start date has been reported.

Mining is planned to start 12 months before production to allow for early ore stockpiling and the creation of voids for tailings backfilling. South plant production is scheduled to start in Year 1, with north plant production to start in Year 5. Nameplate run-of-mine capacity is expected to be reached by the end of Year 5. 

A prefeasibility study (PFS) on the proposed rare earths recovery operation is targeted for completion in 2027.

Latest Developments
Sovereign Metals announced on September 9, 2026, that a scoping study had confirmed the potential to recover a monazite rare-earth concentrate as a third product from Kasiya. Concurrently, the Kasiya rutile-graphite project was renamed the Kasiya Critical Minerals project to reflect its combined rutile, graphite and rare earths product suite.

The study is underpinned by a maiden monazite mineral resource estimate of 524.4-million tonnes grading 0.0132% monazite and containing an estimated 69 000 t of monazite. About 74% of the resource is classified as indicated and 26% as inferred. The resource is contained within the openpits already designed under the April 2026 DFS.

Sovereign plans to undertake further variability testwork, start marketing and offtake discussions for the proposed rare-earth concentrate, and complete a PFS in 2027. Further technical and commercial work will be required before the rare earths operation can be incorporated into Kasiya’s definitive development plan.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
DRA Global (project management and engineering, dry mining options investigation, process engineering support and operating costing); Moletech Consulting (ore reserves and production target work); Paterson & Cooke (pumping, settling and dewatering testwork); Epoch Resources (tailings management); Professional Cost Consultants (capital cost estimating); Practara Metals & Mining Advisory (financial modelling); and R&H Rail and Grindrod Logistics (logistics). 

Contact Details for Project Information
Sovereign Metals, tel +61 8 9322 6322 or email info@sovereignmetals.com.au.