Group Vision
Most of the capital expenditure to bring the mine into production has already been incurred and the additional investment still required is small.
Steenkampskraal’s high rare earth grades mean that the mining volumes will be small: to produce 2,700 tonnes of rare earths per year, the production of ore from the mine will be only about 24,000 tonnes per year.
At this rate of production, Steenkampskraal will have a mine life of about twenty-five years.
Steenkampskraal has great prospecting potential to increase the size of its mineral resource in the Mining Right area and to increase its volume of production or its life-of-mine.
The Steenkampskraal ore is amenable to conventional metallurgical processing technologies.
Steenkampskraal will be able to produce a high-purity monazite concentrate.
Steenkampskraal’s monazite concentrate will be suitable for the caustic crack process and for the production of good quality rare earth carbonate.
Many rare earth separation factories want to buy Steenkampskraal’s rare earth carbonate production.
Steenkampskraal could build a rare earth separation factory in South Africa and add more value to its rare earth products.
Rare earth prices are on an upward trend partly due to the increased production and sales of electric vehicles.
Steenkampskraal has the approval of the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) to store the thorium by-product at the mine.
Steenkampskraal is registered with the NNR and could apply for permission to buy monazite from other companies and to process this monazite at the mine; as there are large quantities of monazite in Africa and in other parts of the world, Steenkampskraal could increase its production substantially or extend its life-of-mine indefinitely.