After a tough financial year, rare earth element miner Rainbow Rare Earths is adapting the way in which it operates and is moving towards a more mechanised and efficient operation at its Gakara mine, in Burundi, CEO George Bennett said on Wednesday.
He reported that production had been challenging during the 12 months ended June 30, but pointed out that it would be "more correct to characterise our operating methods in the year as trial mining".
Rainbow sold 850 t of concentrate, at an average grade of 57% total rare earth oxides (TREO), during the financial year under review – Gakara's first full year of production. This compares with the 475 t of concentrate sold in the 2018 financial year.
The company noted that production challenges required it to undertake additional exploration to define the orebody and to move to more mechanised mining.
"The experience gained in this trial mining phase will enhance our understanding of this orebody while we prove that we can develop the project as a low-cost mine, while at the same time focussing our efforts on developing our understanding of the orebody.
"We have already embarked on a programme of testwork and further exploration whose aim is to define a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource sufficient to support an initial ten-year life-of-mine, with a first stage target production of 10 000 t/y of concentrate grading at about 54% to 56% TREO."