Name and Location
Yangibana rare earths project, Australia.

Client
Hastings Technology Metals.

Project Description
A prefeasibility study (PFS) on the Yangibana project has confirmed the viability of the project.

The PFS is based on a seven-year mining operation, extracting only current Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resources in the indicated category estimated at 8.13-million tonnes. Inferred resources are estimated at 4.24-million tonnes.

The study envisages a one-million-tonne-a-year operation, extracting about seven-million tonnes of mill feed from the project’s Bald Hill South and Fraser’s Yangibana West and Yangibana North deposits over a mine life of seven years.

The PFS is based on the production of a mixed rare-earth double sulphate on site with overseas treatment to produce separated oxides of neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, europium, samarium and gadolinium through a toll agreement with a third party.

Additional rare earths will be considered for processing at a later date to meet future market requirements.

The toll treatment model will enable Hastings to take advantage of existing downstream processing technology and production facilities that currently exist abroad.

The advantage of this model is that Hastings does not need to develop, design and build its own separation and refining plant in Australia.

Subsequently, the company will not be able to start on-site development and fast-track to the production of the hydromet concentrate earlier than previously envisaged.

The proposed exploitation of the Yangibana deposits incorporated in the PFS is based on:
• mining and processing to produce a rare earths hydromet concentrate of double sulphate on site at Yangibana; and
• the separation and refining of the rare earths concentrate to produce separated rare-earth oxides and metals to be undertaken overseas.

Mining is proposed using standard drill-and-blast and truck-and-shovel methods. The mined ore will be crushed and milled to reduce the feed to the required sizing for the flotation process.

The on-site hydrometallurgical plant will further process the flotation concentrate, containing 85% of the initial rare earths in 4.9% to 7% of the original mass to extract the target rare earths into a mixed rare-earth double sulphate.

This double sulphate concentrate will be shipped offshore under a contract arrangement that will provide Hastings with separated rare-earth oxide products for sale.

The proposed contract refiner is an established operation that produces and markets rare earths products.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has a pretax net present value, at an 8% discount rate, of $700-million to $750-million and an internal rate of retrun of 40%, with a payback on capital costs of 2.5 years.

Value
Total capital costs are estimated at between A$390-million and A$420-million.

Duration
The project is expected to start operations in 2019.

Latest Developments
Hastings has indicated that it will undertake additional work to improve the project economics and compile the necessary documentation to secure project approvals.

Additional work will include further exploration work, optimising the mine and processing plan and securing offtake partners for the hydromet concentrate and the separated oxides and metals.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.

On Budget and on Time?
Too early state.

Contact Details for Project Information
Hastings Technology Metals, tel +61 2 8268 8689, fax +61 2 8268 8699 or email info@hastingstechmetals.com.