Namibia Critical Metals president, Darrin Campbell has said since initiating a 16,000 meter drill program which brought the size of their Lofdal project resource from 6 million tonnes to over 53 million tonnes Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO), his team believes that they’ve cracked the geological code of the project and further believes there’s still significant upside to grow this resource significantly further from the 53 million tonnes.
Rare earths have become critical metals over the past few years as they are widely used in permanent magnets for electric vehicles and in wind turbines, meaning demand has taken off as energy and technology transformations have increased.
Canadian-listed Namibia Critical Metals Inc is developing a Tier-1 Heavy Rare Earth Project at Lofdal in Namibia that has the potential for significant production of dysprosium and terbium, two of the most valuable heavy rare earth elements.
The company is aiming to become a long-term, sustainable supplier of heavy rare earths, and it is currently pursuing a pre-feasibility study (PFS) at Lofdal having started a final drill program at the end of January 2023 to increase the level of resource categories as required for the expanded project.
In an interview with Proactive, Campbell was last week quoted saying in addition to geological success, Namibia Critical Metals had a great deal of processing success as well.
“We’ve worked over the last decade with all of the top consulting processors all over the world – in Australia, South Africa, Germany, Canada – and we believe we have also cracked the processing code because, particularly in a rare earth project, not only do you have to solve the geology, you also need to be able to solve how to economically process, which is very difficult and complex, and we believe we’ve done that too.
“We just recently announced a pilot plant flotation and hydrometallurgical program with SGS Canada, our lead metallurgist consulting company that we’ve been working with for the last few years, and we’ve made a great deal of success in improving the economics of this project. And then all that work was compiled into an updated preliminary economic assessment that was released in November and we are currently now into a pre-feasibility study stage with the project,” he said.
There are a number of professional forecasters and experts that have forecasted a significant growth curve for rare earths over the next decade. One that comes to mind is Adamas Intelligence, who are very active in the space and have projected a compound annual growth of almost 9% per year from 2022 to 2035 in rare earth prices.
“That is really driven by the mania over transitioning vehicle fleets from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, as well as by increases in wind turbines. So, we’re very bullish about the outlook for rare earth pricing and the demand for, in particular, heavy types such as dysprosium and terbium, which are truly the rarest of all other rare earth metals,” Campbell said.
In 2020, the Company entered into a transformational transaction, securing a joint venture with JOGMEC, the Japan organization for metals and energy security, a Japanese government state agency. They have a multi-billion-dollar budget and a mandate to secure supply of natural resources for Japanese industry. About a decade ago, or more, JOGMEC did a joint venture with a very little-known light rare earth explorer out of Australia called Linus, which they have funded for over US$300 million to date, making Linus now one of the largest rare earth companies in the world. That was to secure supply of light rare earths for Japan, and they have now turned their attention to the Lofdal deposit to be a long-term supplier of the heavy rare earths, in particularly dysprosium and terbium, for Japan for the next decade or longer. And that’s exactly what we’re on track to accomplish.
Business Express understands that the terms of the partnership with JOGMEC call for them to spend C$20 million in three different terms in order to earn a 50% interest and they will be completing term two of the three by next month. They have advanced additional funds to get them over the $10 million exploration requirement to reach their first 40% interest and in the process of finalizing restructuring of Namibian subsidiaries to accommodate their interest in the project going forward.
Speaking about future prospects, Campbell said that over the next 12 months there are going to be a lot of catalysts for the project.
“We have started the pre-feasibility study, which we will deliver in early 2024. We are just wrapping up resource and infield drilling in the next two weeks at Lofdal, so we expect some good news to come out of that. We’re also starting the pilot plant phase of flotation and hydrometallurgical work, which will be completed probably in Q3 into Q4 of this year.
In addition, our Japanese partner JOGMEC recently made a very important announcement that it is moving the project into what is called a public tender process to bring in a Japanese industrial partner to the joint venture at some point in the next year. We’re really excited about that as it has the potential to rapidly accelerate us through feasibility and into production,” he said.
Conclusively, Campbell said: “We also have really expanded, with our JOGMEC partners, on our ESG and corporate reach to the community in Namibia, which I am really proud of. For over a decade, we have been very active in our communities, sponsoring a local orphanage for the last 10 years, drilling water holes for farmers around our project, and, just recently, we started an Early Learners Assistance programme, sponsoring over 200 children in two grade schools in our area providing them with school uniforms and supplies for a year. That scheme was modelled after a community reach program instigated by our largest shareholder, an Australian-listed uranium developer in Namibia called Bannerman Energy.”