Sonia Madigan:
We’re at Lindian Resources (LIN) booth at Kalgoorlie’s Diggers & Dealers mining forum today.
Now I’m joined by Alistair Stephens, he’s the CEO, and he’s actually bought some rare earths from Malawi to show us.
Tell us about what you’re holding there, Alastair.
Alistair Stephens:
This is mineral concentrate of rare earths from Malawi from our processing operations
that we’ve done in our test work programs. The unique thing about this concentrate is that it’s non-radioactive. That’s a particularly unique aspect within the hard rock rear earth industry, in that this means that one, it has lower environmental detrimental aspects when downstream processing, but two more importantly, it means it has a greater diversity of commercial saleability because it’s non-radioactive.
Sonia Madigan:
Well, we’re here in Kalgoorlie and we’re in the mining state, of Western Australia.
Is it hard to sell a project in Malawi to the people that are gathered here today, to
the investors and to the brokers?
Alistair Stephens:
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is very much a centric Western Australian or Australian forum. But this project has got such a positioning statement now. We’ve come out with a resource of 261 million tonnes of 2.19 and we’ve got two deep holes, one hole that’s gone 854 metres of 2.73 per cent. So we’re now on the radar as being a giant project, a giant resource.
We’ve taken resource risk off the table, we’ve done our metallurgical programs, so we are now going to be positioning ourselves as a major player in importance in the rare earth supply chain.
Sonia Madigan:
And not only that, you actually hope to be commissioning a plant by the end of next year?
Alistair Stephens:
That’s right. We’ll go through tendering and expressions of interest later this year.
Probably start our civil works later, but going into full construction next year, commissioning, maybe some production in the last quarter of next year, small-scale plant, going into production in 2025.
Sonia Madigan:
Now, being here at the Forum, what do you hope to achieve?
Alistair Stephens:
It’s about a placement strategy, not only for the company but for this project in
the rare earth supply chain.
It’s going to be globally significant. This is our first step in our recognition in Australia.
The next step is recognition globally.