Rainbow Rare Earths Limited

Rainbow Rare Earths Limited

RBW.L
Rainbow Rare Earths LimitedGB flagLondon Stock Exchange
25.00
GBp
-0.25
- -
174.92MMarket Cap

Q2 2026 · Earnings Call Transcript

Apr 10, 2026

APIChat

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Rainbow Rare Earths Limited Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll.

And I would now like to hand you over to CEO, George Bennett. Good morning to you.

George Sidney Bennett

Good morning, and welcome to all viewers to the Investor Meet and Rainbow Rare Earths' presentation. I'd like to say we've chosen a good day with the two-week cease fire in the Iran war, which bodes well for the markets.

I see all markets up this morning. So that's very, very positive for everybody concerned, and we're all relieved, I'm sure about that.

Now to move on to Rainbow, which is developing two key rare earth projects. And basically, we -- I'll take you through the presentation and show that we're going to be a very low-cost producer of these rare earths and part of the independent supply chain being built out in the Western world at the moment.

There's our disclaimer. There's just some key metrics for Rainbow at the moment that you can see on the screen there.

As I said, we have pioneered the economic recovery of rare earths from phosphogypsum. It had been done previously on lab scale and academic papers, but never economically, and we've basically been able to do this in with an economic flow sheet.

We've developed IP using proven technology, I must stress. And that also derisked -- we're not using any special reagents or any special resins that are bespoke for this project or any bespoke equipment for this project.

It's all standard off-the-shelf reagents, resins that are available commercially and the equipment is standard equipment used in mineral processing plants around the world. As I said, we -- one of the key drivers for our low cost is that we exclude costs and risks typically associated with normal mining projects, and I'll go through that.

And we've got -- and we're one of the only rare earth companies in the world that I'm aware of that's got two major diversified projects in different continents. So you've got diversified risk and you've got diversified project risk.

And both of these are effectively near-term assets in terms of going into production. We've got good support from the U.S.

government by the DFC that's the Development Finance Corporation. We've committed $50 million in project equity into the Phalaborwa project at FID when we go into construction, we have a very supportive shareholder in TechMet, which is also a critical minerals fund funded by both the DFC and the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund, and we have good support from Ecora where we have a small royalty.

As mentioned, we have got two key projects and the project numbers speak for itself, where you can see that these are two major, major projects that are going to develop massive EBITDA revenues for Rainbow once both of these projects in production. The Phalaborwa project.

These numbers were our last numbers published in December '24, using spot rare earth pricing at the time of $110 a kg for Nd Pr. And as you can see, that project has only got a 16-year life, but it's going to generate $181 million of EBITDA per annum based on those numbers at the time.

And rare earth pricing has been higher since then. We saw neodymium and praseodymium trading at $140 a kg earlier this year, so way above the $110 that these numbers are based on.

And our project CapEx of circa $320-odd million is at the very, very low end for rare earth projects, and that's what makes Rainbow uniquely low capital intensity. We've got a very, very low operating cost, and we've got exceptionally high, not only EBITDA margin but IRR as well.

And we've been very conservative with our NPV. Discount rate at 10.

When we do the deal with the DFC, our discount rate we've agreed is 9.5. So it's a slightly better discount rate for the project economics.

And at Uberaba in Brazil, we published economic assessment last month on that project. And there, you can see those numbers speak for itself.

The project's NPV also using a very conservative NPV of 10 of almost $1 billion. Our IRR is over 45% there.

We've got -- that will generate $217 million of EBITDA per annum. EBITDA margin also way over 70% and a very low capital intensity, circa $280-odd million.

So we [Technical Difficulty] very low compared to your traditional projects. And what's different about the Uberaba project is this is a live feed.

In other words, the phosphogypsum being generated in Brazil is from a live phosphoric acid production facility with Mosaic, the global fertilizer business listed in New York who will be partnering with in Brazil. And this project has got a life of over 30 years.

So it's a very, very long life project, very high grade for this type of asset, the PPM of the rare earths and the phosphogypsum are circa 5,100 ppm, TREO, and at [ Phalaborwa ] 4,400 ppm. We've got hard rock projects out there in the world of some are as low as 500 ppm and some are 5,000 ppm similar to where we are in Brazil, but they've still got to do all the mining and all the costs associated to get the rare earths into a situation where they can separate, which we don't have in these projects in both Phalaborwa and Brazil.

This is -- we're running a pilot plant at Mintek in South Africa. We've been running a continuous pilot plant 24/7.

It's a large-scale pilot plant, and we're producing intermediate product called it's a mixed rare earth product. As you can see, it's greater than 75% TREO, total rare earth oxides in this product, very, very high grade in rare earths as well as significantly low in terms of impurities.

And this is actually a point of success for Rainbow because lots of rare earth projects stop one step before this, which is a mixed rare earth concentrate and then they crack it into a mixed rare earth carbonate or intermediate product, which this is -- we call it a mixed rare earth hydroxide in our case and then they stopped there. The projects have stopped there.

So we could stop go as rainbow and this is a success. But we are doing what Lynas in Australia are doing going one step further down the beneficiation chain, which is to separate the Nd and Pr to 99.5% purity out of this product you see on the screen, and we'll produce an SEG+ group, which samarium, europium, and gadolinium with our very high-value heavies in there being dysprosium, terbium and yttrium.

And that SEG+, we will then sell to somebody who will refine it further and separate those individual rare earth oxides out of the SEG+. Once again, I must stress this is similar to what Lynas have done for their whole production life when they started up some 12 to 14 years ago, they always separated Nd and Pr and produce some SEG+ product and they built a multibillion dollar business on going that far downstream.

It's only recently in Malaysia that they've decided to separate the heavies themselves, but -- and they're one of the few companies in the Western world that will be separating those heavies in sort of totally integrated production line. In other words, they'll be producing the mixed rare earth concentrate.

They'll be cracking it into intermediate product and then they'll be separating SEG+ in Malaysia, Nd Pr, they're separating in Australia. In terms of the market for rare earths, I think this is well understood, hopefully by most of the audience here is that there's massive demand for permanent magnets, which are driving the demand for neodymium and praseodymium key rare earths that make up a large part of the permanent magnet as well as dysprosium and terbium, which also require the permanent magnets to protect them against the heat generated by the motors.

Now we've seen massive, massive increase of uses for the permanent magnets. Apart from your hybrid electric vehicles, your fully electric vehicles, wind turbines, consumer electronics like your cell phones, your airpods part, your Bose speakers, air conditioning units now use permanent magnet motors.

But there's a massive, massive demand going forward for defense. And with geopolitics the way they are in the world these days, I think this is going to drive demand for those key rare earths even higher, even though it's not massive volume, it's very critical.

We're seeing massive uses of drones and warfare at the moment in the Ukraine-Russian war at the moment, massive use of drones, that's going to increase and those need permanent magnet motors to drive those drones. We also see NATO almost tripling their defense spend over the next few years, and that's going to lead to a lot more demand for rare earths and all those military applications, including drones, tanks and so forth, aircraft.

And then we just see the geopolitics the way they are, this Iran war, which thankfully is has a ceasefire right now. But those rockets that have been flung at by both sides require rare earths and then on the missile guidance systems, the ordnance, the Tomahawk missiles and rare earths.

And so I see the strategic demand for rare earths increasing. And that means that there's even more emphasis to create this independent supply chain outside of China.

And lastly, you've got robotics. I mean two years ago at a conference in Toronto, I highlighted to Rainbow audience that I thought robotics are going to be a major demand driver for rare earths going forward.

They're talking about 10 billion robots by 2040. I see the next decade is a major, major frontier for demand for permanent magnets made of rare earths, and that's been driven by drones, as I say, not only warfare, but also drones used by people like Amazon to do deliveries in cities around the world.

We're also seeing eVTOL that's Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing vehicles starting to operate in the U.S. They were operating them in Dubai doing trial runs in Dubai until the war started.

But these require lots of permanent magnets in them in terms of weight. And then, of course, your robotics.

So even if you don't think they're going to be 10 billion robots on the planet by 2040, which I think is very optimistic, but just 1 billion robots on the planet by 2040, that's 1/10 of the forecast number of robots on the planet. They require 3x to 5x more permanent magnets in the EV.

And if you think about what's been driving demand for permanent magnets over the last years being EVs and wind turbines, they only forecast 500 million EVs on the planet by 2040, but even at 1 billion robots, which is very conservative, that's double the number of EVs by taking 3x to 5x the number of permanent magnets in terms of weight. So I see the demand outlook for rare earths into these applications being very, very robust and increasing exponentially over the next 5 to 10 years.

I've spoken about defense briefly, but just to give you an idea, an F-35 fighter jet has got almost half a tonne of rare earths in that. You've got a California class submarine has got 4 tonnes of rare earths that's figured there that's got 2-plus tonnes of rare earths, but also you see it in tanks, you see it, as I said, in the guidance systems, night vision goggles, all sorts of military applications require rare earths and the strategic nature of rare earths is not going to go away for anytime soon.

This is where Rainbow's project differs from most projects around the world. As I said, what we got in both our projects in both South Africa and Brazil is that the phosphate hard rock mine, which has got rare earths in it, but not economic quantities to mine the hard rock phosphate for the rare earths.

That phosphate rock is then through a flotation process concentrated into a phosphate slurry, and that slurry is then fed into a phosphoric acid plant to create phosphoric acid for the fertilizer for fertilizers. And add sulfuric acid and heat to that phosphate slurry and that generates waste residue called phosphogypsum.

The rare earths are upgraded in the concentration but process in the phosphate slurry and they then the port with the gypsum into the waste residue at Phalaborwa. We have two stacks of 35 million tonnes.

And in Brazil, we have a stack that's over 85 million tonnes. But more importantly, as I said, it's a live stack.

They continue to produce about 4.5 million tonnes of phosphogypsum per annum. And the project in Brazil, we're going to be taking one of those -- the live stream of this phosphate slurry.

Two phosphoric acid plants there, we'll be taking a live stream, feeding that into our rare earth chemical facility, extracting the rare earths and giving the phosphogypsum back. And the beauty about Brazil has got a long life, as I said, over 30 years.

So -- we don't have -- as I said, it's a waste product. So it's a very environmentally friendly project in terms of we taking earths out of waste and adding value to the waste.

And what we do is we just reclaim the phosphogypsum and put it straight into a leach circuit, and we then go into our first stage of beneficiation, which is produce a high-grade mixed rare earth product. And then we're going further downstream, as I said, to separate into Nd Pr, that's neodymium, praseodymium and produce that SEG+, which is all those which have high value.

Now just to take you to the site in South Africa. This is your site at Phalaborwa.

It's within 5 kilometers of the center of mining town has been in existence for over 60 years. Just north of that photo is a phosphate hard rock mine that produces the phosphate slurry.

It was a phosphoric acid plant in the top right-hand corner -- top left-hand corner there. And that then created phosphoric acid, as I mentioned, for the fertilizer industry owned by Sasol in South Africa and create those two gypsum stacks you see in the photograph there.

We're going to be lining the triangle on the bottom right of those stacks with a liner, claiming one stack, putting it on the line stack site. Then when that stacks at height, we'll then start reclaiming the second stack.

We will line the area where the first stack has been reclaimed and then we'll put the balance of the phosphogypsum on the reline area. And so these stacks will sit on completely line sites.

So that solves a big environmental issue for this area in Phalaborwa. Sasol do have a fund to cover any environmental liability around these stacks.

They are ultimately liable for any environmental sort of claims that might come as a result of the stake. But we're actually cleaning up the stack, putting them on nine stack sites, and we'll be selling the phosphogypsum into the South market over a period of 30 to 40 years.

And that means that eventually the site will be completely level and will be a complete rehabilitation of that site. So a very, very strong ESG and environmental sort of value to this project for Rainbow and for the community.

The beauty about this that red border you see that's the fence, the site has been fenced for over 60 years. We don't have to displace any villages.

We don't have to -- we're not cutting down pristine forest or pristine jungle like one might have to do if you've got a project in a remote site in Brazil. This is a brownfield site.

And similarly, I'll show you for [indiscernible] It's a similar story. It's a brownfield site.

It's within the existing fence of the current phosphoric acid production facilities. And this is -- there's three mines operating within 5 kilometers of the site.

And so we've got a huge skilled workforce serviced by [indiscernible] highways and an airport at Phalaborwa. So, yes at Phalaborwa.

It's a very, very well serviced town. And from a construction point of view, this is a breeze to build our processing plant at the site, which will start, and I'll talk about that shortly.

Just in terms of the value of our phosphogypsum. On the left, you can see if we use Chinese pricing, Nd Pr represents about 86% of the value of our basket and the balances there we're showing the dysprosium and terbium and it's the SEG+ dysprosium and terbium and yttrium in it.

Now if we look at what's happening in Europe over the last year or so, you've seen a bifurcation of pricing between Chinese pricing and European pricing. European pricing for yttrium for -- dysprosium and terbium was trading much, much higher.

And if we put European pricing into our basket of rare earths, you can see the increase in revenue that we would realize from just selling the separating Nd Pr and then the SEG+, and all that accrual in revenue just flows to our bottom line. I've been very conservative.

I'm not showing you those European numbers and the slide -- the upfront slide at the beginning of this presentation. But if we wanted to, you could calculate that many tens of millions of dollars would flow to our EBITDA bottom line if we can realize European pricing.

But that's upside for the project and it's just what I think investors should be aware of, and we're very excited that we see this bifurcation of pricing getting even stronger over the next few years. And certainly, when we come into production, starting with our first project, which is late '28, early '29, which is the Phalaborwa project and then the Mosaic project in 2030, we would expect to be capturing some of that European pricing, and that's all upside to our financial model.

Just to confirm, this has been done by Argus Media. It has not been done by Rainbow, but it confirms that Rainbow is the highest margin rare earth project in development in the world today.

This was done at circa 2024 pricing, where at that stage, MP Materials in America was losing money and Mount Weld, which is Lynas in Australia was just breaking even and making a small profit. Rainbow is on the right-hand side there.

The project on the right of Rainbow is another rare earth project, but it's actually -- it's a byproduct. So all the costs associated with that -- with generating those rare earths are covered by the production of another minerals.

So the margin is actually misleading there. But in terms of the pure rare earth play, we know that we're the highest margin business in development in the world today.

And our DFS will confirm that when we publish it later this year. We used our pilot plant last year to optimize our flow sheet, and we've been able to deliver a very cost-effective and efficient extraction process to extract rare earths from the phosphogypsum and then feed it downstream into the final separation circuit.

The design of that final separation circuit was done initially by ANSTO and it's confirmed that we're going to have two circuits of circa 75 mixer settlers between both circuits. So it's a very, very small number of mixer settlers, and it's a very small solvent extraction circuit.

But we decided to go solvent extraction because that's the industry standard. It completely derisked Rainbow.

We were looking at going with continuous chromatography, which is a technology that's used in other industries around the world, that's never been used in rare earths. It's never been used with a successful pilot scale or commercial scale.

And we were going -- we were looking at this opportunity with our technology partner in America, but they couldn't deliver on that. They couldn't achieve the results that they claim they would achieve.

And when we realized that, we decided to bring our pilot plant from Florida back to South Africa, and we built our own state-of-the-art laboratory. You can see a photo of our laboratory in the slide in front of you, but that enabled us to try and replicate the tests that were supposed to be achieved in Florida.

We didn't see them being achieved. And then we had such success with our continuous ion exchange part of our project, which reduces the volumetric flow of our pregnant leach solution coming into the -- out of the leach circuit from 340 cubes an hour to 40 or 50 cubes an hour and where we see significant impurity rejection at that stage of the CIX process, we then go into a few stages of what's known as a precipitation to drop out the balance of the impurities and our final feed into our downstream separation circuit now drops to about 3 to 4 cubes an hour.

And with that, we realized we have a very small solvent extraction circuit, and that's why we decided to go solvent extraction. The industry standard used by all major rare earth projects around the world going downstream and separating.

So we're very pleased that we finally realized that we needed to make this change and derisk Rainbow completely. But even though we had this year in our time line in terms of development, what it did do is allowed us to look at our front-end flow sheet where 80% of our CapEx sits, we optimized that while we were finalizing the route to final separation.

And we use that time very, very effectively in our own in-house laboratory. We changed our leach circuit from three stages of leaching to two stages of leaching.

By increasing the temperature in our leach circuit, we are able to improve our leach kinetics. And with our leach resins, our leach kinetics improving significantly, we're able to reduce our resins' time from 32 hours down to 8 hours.

And that means you've got less tankage, you got less stainless steel, you've got less steel work around those tanks, you've got less [indiscernible], you've got less earthworks. All that is helping contain our overall capital number for this project within that $320 million that we published in December '24, and this is a significant achievement for rare earth projects, not only rare earth projects, but other projects which are significantly growing out the CapEx numbers around the world.

And with a very experienced team at Rainbow and designing and building process plants all over the world, we have a very good handle on our CapEx, and we believe we'll still be within that range when we publish our DFS at the end of 2026. Our large-scale pilot plant, as I mentioned earlier, is producing about a kilogram of mixed rare earth hydroxide a day, which is intermediate, intermediate product.

And as I said, that's a significantly large amount of product being produced. Most pilot plants, mineral pilot plants that are run produce grams of material.

We're producing a kilogram a day. So we're very proud of that fact.

This is our final flow sheet that we simplified from our initial PEA. All the work we've done has been to improve this flow sheet.

We're in an economic flow sheet, but what we've done is we've been able to reduce CapEx, keep the overall CapEx number intact and also make improvements to our OpEx by optimizing our flow sheet. And that's why, as I said, when we publish our DFS, we believe we will be the lowest cost producer of separated rare earths in the Western world, and we believe we might be even below Chinese cost of production.

We reclaim the gypsum. We slurry it with water and screen to just remove debris.

There's not much debris in it, but just a small amount of debris removed going over a screen and will then go into two stages of counter-current leach circuit. Then the pregnant leach solution drops out into a continuous ion exchange circuit, which then recovers the rare earths of the resin.

And at the same time, we see significant impurity rejection. We then go into a few stages of precipitation for final impurity rejection, then we feed the final SX separation circuit, which is the industry standard.

In terms of prototype to production for -- this is for Phalaborwa now, as I said, we've -- the next steps are supported by the successful optimization of our flow sheet. And the most important work we did last year was not only deciding on our final route to separation, was also optimizing the front-end flow sheet with the majority of the CapEx sits.

And that means that we've taken a bit longer on this project, but we end up with a much more robust and much better project. And I think the market will agree with me, that's far more important than trying to achieve a time line that you promised the market when you were getting the results as we're promised by our partner in America, and we pivoted to solvent extraction but this has led us to have a far more robust project and where we will have -- we won't have any issues when we commission this plant, and we believe it will operate very, very smoothly because rare earth projects, they are quite technical, but our optimization of the flow sheet that will effectively made it quite a simple flow sheet.

The secret is how we put everything together, our reagents and our dosages and our resins times and so forth. And how we operate our continuous ion exchange circuit that's last piece of Rainbow and that we've been very successful in developing.

Say our target is to finish the DFS. We are on track to finish by the end of this year.

We will then go and at the same time, we're starting financing in parallel. I'm talking about project financing now to get project finance in place for this project.

We believe we'll have 2/3 of debt and 1/3 will be equity. And then we believe FID, we're targeting the end of the third quarter of 2027 to start early works and front-end engineering and design for the project in Phalaborwa in the last quarter of '27, full construction '28, and to be commissioning and production late '28, first quarter of 2029, and that's a very achievable time line.

And as I've indicated, it's a year below, a year longer than what we initially thought we'd be. But in terms of projects, this is still a very, very fast track project.

We got hold of this project and realized the rare earth in the phosphogypsum in January '21. We're talking production end of '28.

That's exceptionally fast. Most mining projects from discovery to production, the average is 20 years and 15 years is quick, 20 years average, other projects take 25, 35 years.

Project like Simandou in Guinea, the iron ore project with Rio Tinto that's been around for 35 years before going to production my views and idea of the project time lines for rare earth projects. And the Uberaba project, I'm pleased to say is coming along even quicker.

Mosaic are targeting us to get this into production in 2030. We only started on that project two years ago.

And the reason why we can move that project along a lot quicker into production is because 80%, 90% of the flow sheet we've developed for Phalaborwa is applicable to Uberaba. So we get all the benefit of that IP has been applied to the project in Brazil.

As you can see, this is the project in Brazil at Uberaba. It's very, very similar to what you saw with the project at Phalaborwa in terms of -- you see the big jumps and stack there.

The bottom left is the ongoing operations at site. This is 500 kilometers from Sao Paulo serviced by a three-lane highway all the way to the city of Uberaba, and this is about 20 kilometers outside the city.

It's in the middle of the sugarcane belt. So there's no pristine forest.

There's no villages, Amazonian villages you've got to move or so forth or tribes or it's an industrial site. It's been operating for many, many, many years, probably 30 or 40 years at least, similar to Phalaborwa, it's completely fenced.

We've got ground within the fenced area to build our processing facility. A lot of the reagents that are required by our process are being used on site already.

So a lot of the permitting is already in place for those reagents. So we see the time line to permitting being very, very quick for this project, and in Brazil, we are in partnership with a global fertilizer producer, multibillion-dollar fertilizer producer being Mosaic.

And of course, they've been in Brazil for a long time already. So we don't see any issues there.

And we're very excited about this project as well because this is -- this project has got a life of exceeding 30-odd years. So this is a long life, high-grade project in terms of rare earth projects and compared to a mining project, very similarly very, very long life, very high grade.

Because once again, we don't have all your costs associated with mining that normal rare earth projects. In other words, there you've got a drill and blast, you got a hole, stockpile rare earths, hard rock rare earths then you got a crush, you got a mill, then you got a flow flotation process, produce a mixed rare earth concentrate, then you crack that concentrate into a chemical form and only then can you go further downstream.

As I mentioned, some projects stop at that once that cracked into a chemical form a mix rare earth carbonate and they sell that for further separation, we're going further downstream as Rainbow. But as I said, lots of projects stop there, we are going further downstream.

You will have seen last week, we just announced a capital raise. We're very pleased.

It was done at a very, very good price to where Rainbow is trading. We were trading between 19p and 21.5p for the week before our raise, we settled at 20p a raise.

We've raised $14.6 million, and that gives us runway well into the end of 2027 and beyond and it also enables us to fund our pre-feasibility commitments with Mosaic on Uberaba. It allows us to complete the DFS as well as the EIA process and the permitting process as well as engage with debt financiers, which are expensive to engage with, but to keep our debt on track so we can keep our project on time lines on track, and we're very excited that we in the breakup market that we were able to successfully raise this money out of the U.S.

90% of it came from U.S. funders, backed two family offices as well as Traxys.

Traxys, we know as a global trader that is one of the partners for Project Vault, which has been appointed by the U.S. government to source strategic and critical minerals, critical minerals for the $12 billion strategic stockpile that has been created by the U.S.

government under Donald Trump, and that's not going to go away. So the fact that we have Traxys now as a significant shareholder, I think bodes very well for our interaction in the U.S.

and raises our profile in the U.S. and also the fact that we are now seen as a major player going forward in the rare earth space.

And I think this commitment by Traxys confirms that. What makes Rainbow different?

We believe we've got a unique opportunity with two very, very robust projects to become a significant producer of separated rare earth oxides in the West. We've got a very experienced team, as you can see there, developed lots of projects in our careers out of the background, a lot of us come out of a background of a mining engineering business called MDM Engineering.

And lots of those people who are in that business work for Rainbow. And between the three chief process engineers, you see there Dodd, Chris and Roux Wildenboer, between three of them, they've got three bankable feasibility studies under their belt in rare earth space, the Lofdal rare earth project in Namibia, the Peak Resources rare earth project in Tanzania and the Mkango rare earth project in Malawi.

The tree guys on your screen there, you see there the guys who develop the process flow sheets for all of three those rare earth projects, and we have that experience within Rainbow, which is unusual for engineer miner like ourselves have so much experience in the rare earth space. And I don't think it's -- we have any other development project in the world today with that kind of experience.

I would like to thank the audience. That's the end of my presentation, and we'll be opening up for questions now.

Operator

That's great, George. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation.

[Operator Instructions] While the company take few moments to review those questions submitted today I would like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with the corporate slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via Investor. And George, at this point, if I may hand back to you to take us through the Q&A session, read out the questions where appropriate, and I'll pick up from you at the end.

George Sidney Bennett

Thank you. I just need to get access to my questions.

I don't have access yet. Thank you.

Operator

George, can you see on the right-hand side Q&A?

George Sidney Bennett

Now I've got them now. Thank you.

So, one of the questions is, can you review last year's milestone chart and explain why we are off target? Well, I think I've answered that in my presentation where we were looking -- the last year's milestone charts are all predicated on us achieving separation success.

We never achieved that with the process, the continuous ion chromatography process that we are looking at doing with our technology partner in Florida. And as I said, when we realized that we were getting the results that they claimed and there was no backup data for their results that we started doing our own work, and we had such success with the continuous ion exchange step in our process that we realized that our flows going downstream were now significantly reduced.

And that meant the solvent extraction circuit would be a very small solvent extraction circuit and fairly low CapEx, which will keep us within our overall CapEx parameters, and that's what we have then decided to do. But that added circa a year to our time line.

But as I said, we also use that to optimize our front-end flow sheet significantly, and it's made for much better for robust project. So, as I've mentioned, you rather take a year longer and have a better project than try to keep a time line and you end up with a project with massive technical problems like we've seen in some other projects in South America that have needed more funding from the U.S.

government to them because they've got huge technical issues. As I said, we've successfully produced a commercial product in the mixed rare earth hydroxide, and we now control the process and the timetable to the final separation, which is solvent extraction.

So the delay with the American technology has turned into a blessing where we've, as I've mentioned, got a far more efficient process and with a very, very small solvent extraction circuit. Next question is why are we seeing -- we are seeing increasing numbers of motor turbines without permanent magnets.

Do you see headwinds on the demand side? And why not?

Well, once again, I went through this in my presentation. Actually, I don't believe that.

We've seen lots of people talk about using substitution or ferrite magnets for motors, but these motors are not efficient. Permanent magnets are the most efficient way of turning energy into motion and vice versa.

And the only thing that's driving guys looking at alternatives is they worry about security of supply. But as more projects come on stream like Rainbow's two projects and other projects that have been committed to the West, so the security of supply becomes more widely spread in the West, and that will mean that people will stop looking at substitution and will continue to focus on using permanent magnets.

But once again, I don't believe there is real substitution taking place. And then we see massive demand, as I've indicated from drones, EV tolls and robotics making up for any slight slippage.

I don't believe there's slippage, by the way. As I said, it's just been -- we've seen reports in the press, but there's no backup numbers for those reports.

We also see that permanent magnets are critical and even internal combustion engine vehicles. So your typical diesel/petrol car still has a kilogram of permanent magnets in it in your steering column in your a brake system in your wing motors and your seat motors, your electric window motors and so forth.

So there's still massive demand for permanent magnets even in those vehicles, never mind EVs. And we see year-on-year EV sales continuing to surpass the previous year.

So I don't believe there's any slowdown in demand. Next question is Rainbow is trading at a steep discount to peers, will Rainbow pursue a U.S.

listing, and what is the time line for that? All I can say is that we agree with you, we are trading at a big discount to our peers.

If you look at our EBITDA numbers forecast of green production in our two projects in 2030, we will -- our EBITDA numbers will be -- if I can look at what Lynas are publishing today, they will be in line with Lynas or not exceeding Lynas. Lynas is a AUD 22 billion business today.

So you can see the upside for Rainbow over the next three to four years that I believe will -- that is there. And yes, U.S.

listing will unlock some of that discount. So we are considering the routes and what to do about the U.S.

strategy, and we'll update the market in due course. What is the current cash burn rate on average per month, how much CapEx is required until FID at Phalaborwa.

Well, our current burn rate is about $400,000 a month. And if you see what we raised $14.6 million, we've got about 35 months of cash burn.

We do see a slight increase in the cash burn as we pursue some of these other work streams. But if you look at Rainbow's G&A compared to what we spend on projects, it's very, very well contained compared to some other companies out there.

So we're very proud of that fact that we have a very good percentage of our G&A compared to what the amount of money we spend on actually delivering value for shareholders, and we don't see that changing. To conclude the whole DFS on Phalaborwa, including all the technical environmental and permitting work streams, we don't see this being more than $4 million to $4.5 million.

So that's well within the number we've raised. And we -- as I said, we'll be able to complete the pre-feas at Uberaba, which we believe will deliver very, very robust numbers.

The initial economic assessment numbers are exceptionally strong, and we see that trend continuing when we produce pre-feas at Uberaba and we've got runway further. So we are well cashed up, which is the first time in my life as CEO of Rainbow that we've been so well cashed up to deliver on our work streams.

Are there growth opportunities to beyond Uberaba, which Rainbow actively are looking into. As I mentioned, we've got two large projects that we are focusing on delivering.

Those two large projects have the ability to make Rainbow into a multibillion-dollar business. And that's -- if you look at what MP are going to produce as EBITDA, ad what could Lynas, that's my yardstick.

So you can make that assessment yourself. But -- so we are focusing on delivering those two high-value projects for Rainbow.

But at the same time, we're not close to other opportunities. We are aware of some other opportunities out there, but our focus is on the two key projects right now.

Is the current pilot operation for the DFS a locked cycle pilot or several batches? As I mentioned earlier, this is a large-scale continuous pilot running 24/7.

I think that answers that project. Next question is, will the DFS provide long duration resin degradation data?

Can you share how the CIX process is going? Well, firstly, I'm surprised resin is not a major issue for us in terms of OpEx.

But to answer the question, we see no major degradation of our resin. We're using a very robust resin.

It's commercially available, as I indicated earlier. This resin is showing very, very little degradation after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of uses of this resin.

So we're very pleased about that. But if we take a very conservative approach to our resin, we see ourselves replacing it once every five years, and we believe we'll be even far better than that.

So resin is not an issue and it's not a major cost in our OpEx at that rate of degradation, which is, as I mentioned, very conservative. And the CIX process has been very successful and it's going very well.

As I mentioned earlier, we take 340 cubes of pregnant leach solution into our CIX circuit and we get 40 to 50 cubes an hour coming out of there that then goes into our stages of precipitation. But we see significant impurity rejection after that first stage of the CIX.

So the CIX is working very, very well, and we're very pleased about it. The Rainbow team, as I mentioned earlier, is very experienced coming out of the mining engineering background where we've designed and built a number of uranium process plants where we use continuous ion exchange, we use resin.

So we well aware with the CIX and with resin, and we're very pleased that we've seen far better resin use compared to what we see in uranium plants. We've not seen as much degradation as we've seen with the rare earths in our pregnant leach solution.

Is the purity bleed through iron, calcium and phosphate increasing over time and affecting downstream SX? We see no increase in impurity bleed through our process.

We see the iron and calcium and so forth being rejected as a solid and that will then be fed back into the gypsum stacks. So we don't see this as an issue.

We don't see a buildup and we're using our pilot plant in South Africa is running for a few months now. It will be -- at the time we stop, it will run for about 3.5 months in a continuous fashion.

We don't see any significant buildup of these impurities. As I said, we know because it's a closed loop circuit that we're running in South Africa, we know exactly where to bleed.

And the bleed stream will then go back into the gypsum stack. So there's no issue there.

For the transition from pilot to commercial plant, is a linear scale up assumed? What I can say is that we're running a large-scale pilot plant that's 5x to 10x larger than the typical mineral processing pilot plant and we don't see any issue with scale up.

Are you considering increasing Rainbow's ownership of the Phalaborwa or Uberaba project? Well, it's well documented in our financials that we will be issuing 38 million shares to acquire the final 15% of Phalaborwa.

It's a [indiscernible] election, and we'll do it between now and July 2027. And then in terms of Uberaba in the announcement at the beginning of March, you will have noticed that we footprinted our ownership there at 49% with Mosaic having 51%, and we don't see that changing going forward.

Please explain in the context of the Phalaborwa ownership structure, how much of the downstream value addition through processing is captured by Rainbow Rare Earths. Thank you.

Well, typically, the payability for crack MREC is 65% to 70%. Payability, we know that with our high-grade mix hydroxide that we already been offered a payability of circa 70%.

So we -- as I said, we could stop there. That is a success.

We've got a very high payability of our MREC, but we're going further. And when I mean we're going further, we will see that we will be achieving 100% payability for our separated Nd Pr, which is 75% of the value of the project if we use Chinese pricing.

So that's why it makes sense for us to go further downstream and separate. And then we produce in the SEG+ group.

And because we originally were only targeting getting payability for dysprosium and terbium, now that we're going to get payability for dysprosium, terbium and yttrium and part of the SEG, the samarium, europium, and gadolinium, I'll get some payability there. The overall payability, the overall turnover captured from SEG+ at 70% payability is actually higher than what Rainbow would have achieved by separating the Dy and Tb.

So, in the end, we've come out with a better result and with better revenue numbers, which you'll see in our financial model when we publish our DFS at the end of 2026, as I've mentioned. We do not intend going further downstream into the midstream, which is your metallization, which is turning your separated rare earth oxides into metal and then alloys, which you then feed into a permanent magnet facility.

Those downstream projects are very low margin additions to a project, and we don't see any benefit in trying to go further downstream. We leave other guys to create that value chain downstream, but Rainbow not going to be doing that.

We're happy to partner with guys who will be doing that, but we as Rainbow will not be doing that. Help us understand your reasoning and explain your rationale why Rainbow pivoted away from SX to CIX, and how does CapEx, OpEx and technical execution risk when scaling up compare.

Well, as I indicated earlier, I think I've covered this is that we made this pivot to solvent extraction when we realized that continuous ion chromatography wasn't delivering the results that we've been claimed. And it's been a very, very good move because solvent extraction is completely derisking.

It's a gold standard for final separation. And we're having a very small solvent extraction circuit compared to typical solvent extraction circuit.

So we see no risk execution as a team, we've built many solvent extraction circuits in the zinc space in the copper space as well as the uranium space. So we don't see an issue, technical issues in our solvent extraction circuit when we go into production.

As I said, we've got a team well okay with commissioning solvent extraction circuits and other commodities, and it's a small solvent extraction circuit for rare earths. So no issue there.

And scaling up, as I've indicated earlier, it's scaling up is not an issue at all from what we're running our pilot plant at and all the -- I mean, this is just leach tanks in the front-end circuit, pumps, filters, filters. Once again, these are standard in mineral processing operations.

So there's no issue of scale up there. We continuous ion exchange circuit.

We've been involved in designing similar sized circuits and uranium projects around the world. So there's no issue there in the continuous ion exchange circuit that we're going to build for Rainbow.

And once again, the extraction circuit is very, very small in terms of what's typical in the industry. So no issues there.

Very strange question. AI Gemini suggests that Pensana's switch to USA leaves Rainbow in a stronger position in Europe.

Please expand if you agree? Well, I can't really comment on Pensana switch once again.

But Rainbow, we know that with people like Traxys being a shareholder in Rainbow that we've got an opportunity to negotiate with the partners of Project Vault who are looking to build strategic stockpile. We also know we have lots of interest from European separators to take up our product, our SEG+ as well as our Nd Pr.

And we have other companies in the U.S. looking for our supply of Nd Pr as well as SEG+.

So we basically see that we've got lots and lots of opportunity for Rainbow in both Europe, Japan as well, by the way, as well as the U.S. So we think Rainbow sits in a very strong position to choose what's best for our shareholders in terms of where our product ends up.

Any news from Burundi? We are continuing to evaluate all options and realize value for our shareholders in Burundi, and we'll keep you updated on that once again.

Is there any prospect for the other Mosaic stacks in Brazil and elsewhere to be investigated for processing. There are some phosphogypsum stacks in Brazil, but we've got the jewel in the crown as Mosaic will tell you themselves, which is the Uberaba phosphogypsum stacks are the only ones that Mosaic has in Brazil.

The other phosphogypsum stacks that Mosaic have are in Florida, and those are sedimentary sources of phosphogypsum, and therefore, totally different in terms of grade compared to what we have at Phalaborwa and Mosaic. Those are long-term opportunities that we might work with Mosaic on realizing value, but they are much, much longer term, as I mentioned.

And right now, we've got two projects in the current Uberaba operation and Phalaborwa to make Rainbow, as I said, a multibillion dollar business and I think that should be our focus for now to deliver massive uplift in value for our shareholders by delivering on that -- on those opportunities, which, as I think you would agree, are more than enough for the management team to focus on right now. You see far too many juniors.

They have 10 different projects across five different countries. And of course, they end up never delivering on any of those.

We're not going to make the same mistake. We've got two very near-term projects, which will deliver massive value and we'll focus on those.

And once again, are there any other sites -- how the other sites progressing like Saudi and OCP and Morocco. Once again, these are sedimentary sources of phosphogypsum stacks.

We are engaged in a test work program with both of those opportunities. But once again, similar to the phosphogypsum in Florida, this is a very, very long-term way to eventually may be creating or extracting value, but these are very, very long-term projects, which are going to move ahead very slowly, we believe, and we've got more than enough to focus on that in Rainbow at the moment.

I'll just see if there's any other questions at the moment. Is there a cash cost to Rainbow for the 49% stake in Brazil besides providing IP and your 49% of CapEx.

I'm pleased to say that -- no, there's no cash cost. It's a very, very big deal that we've done.

I think the market should complement Rainbow on the deal that we've secured 49% of the project is valuable at this with no cash outlay. It's just our IP and our project experience that we've been able to negotiate this deal with Mosaic, we're very happy about that, and it adds massive value to Rainbow for minimal cost.

What are the flow sheet challenges in Phalaborwa compared to the likes of MP Materials or Lynas? I think it speaks for itself.

Those projects are hard rock projects. They have to crush more, produce a mixture of concentrate and to crack concentrate before they can go downstream.

Rainbow starts with the cracked chemical stockpile in terms of the phosphogypsum at Phalaborwa. We'll be taking the phosphogypsum as a feed directly from the phosphoric acid plant at Uberaba.

And so all those processes, we don't incur, which is why our CapEx and OpEx is significantly lower than any of those projects. If you look at the CapEx for those projects that they've spent over the years it runs into the billions of dollars on both projects, we're going to be circa $600 million to produce an EBITDA number that will be better than both those projects.

I think that speaks for itself. And I don't see any more.

Operator

That's great, George. If I may just jump back in there as we approach the hour, and thank you for addressing those questions for investors today.

But George, before I redirect investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to yourself and the company. Could I just please ask you for a few closing comments?

George Sidney Bennett

Sure. I think I've outlined the opportunity for the listeners or the viewers quite well in the sense that, once again, we know that we are going to be a low capital intensity development company in terms of both projects, one in Brazil and in South Africa.

South Africa will come on stream first. It's going to confirm the high margins that we experienced in both projects.

And both these projects are more than enough to make Rainbow not only one of the leading producers of separated rare earths and SEG+ in the world in the Western world, but certainly, as I said, probably the highest margin and very, very economic. These -- we've got the building blocks to create, as I said, a multibillion dollar business here, and we don't see any obstacle to creating that value for our shareholders going forward.

Thank you.

Operator

Fantastic. Thank you very much once again for updating investors today.

Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback, which will help the company to better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.