News24 | The mine that could change Malawi readies to open

The Kangankunde rare earths mine near Blantyre will help diversify the Malawian economy from agriculture, which currently accounts for 80% of export earnings.

Lindian Resources/LinkedIn

• For more financial news, visit News24 Business.

A rare earths mining project that could play a vital role in lifting economic development in Malawi is on course to start production in coming months, according to the owner, Australia’s Lindian Resources.

“We are currently in construction and will be in production at the end of the year,” Lindian Resources Executive Director Zac Komur said in an interview at the Kangankunde mine, 80 kilometers north of the commercial capital, Blantyre. “It should have been in production years ago, but we took the initiative to develop the project into production.”

Once fully operational, the mine will help diversify the Malawian economy from agriculture, which currently accounts for 80% of export earnings.

Malawi is estimated to have some of the world’s most significant deposits of rare earth — critical minerals that are used in a wide range of technologies including smart phones, cars and data centers.

The World Bank projects the southeast African nation could generate up to $30 billion from mineral exports between 2026 and 2040, with rare earths at the centre of that outlook.

“The studies have shown from our development that we would end up mining 500 000 tonnes per annum of monazite concentrate ore from the ore body and producing 20 000 tonnes per annum concentrate as we refine and process it,” Komur said. “Concurrently to that, we are running a stage two feasibility study to understand the expansion of the project and go from producing 20 000 tonnes per annum to 120 000 tonnes per annum of concentrates,” he said.

Komur said the firm already has offtake agreements that would smooth export of the minerals onto international markets.