Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd (LON:RBW) Chief Executive Officer Martin Eales caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their Q2 operations update.
Q1: Martin, can you tell us what was announced this morning?
A1: Yes, what we’ve announced this morning is another quarterly update, it’s actually the end of our financial year to 30th June 2018 and really only our second quarter of production since things started up in December last year.
What we see in the announcement today is a large increase in tonnes sold which really just reflects the timing of our sale shipments but also a nice planned increase in concentrate exported from Burundi which is up 10% quarter on quarter. That’s reflective of our planning to reach the target production run-rate at the end of this year of 400 tonnes a month and to do that we’ve announced a second mining area will be opened later this year in Q4.
Q2: How are Rainbow Rare Earths sales going?
A2: Sales are very good. We sold the bulk of the tonnes in the quarter just finish to two cornerstone customers negotiated by our trading partner Thyssenkrupp and really demand is very strong such that we could really sell everything we could produce at the moment and feedback has been very good on the concentrate.
Q3: Can you explain for us why you’re opening another mining area?
A3: Yes, it is as I say a start-up operation, we’ve only been producing for 6 months and I guess, in any start-up there are bumps in the road to negotiate and I think really, it’s always been part of our plan to have multiple mining areas open. The new one that we’ve announced today is Murambi which will be up and running in the fourth quarter of 2018 on a calendar year basis. Having more than one area open will just gives us a little bit more consistency and the ability to ride out those bumps in the road and enable us to both increase tonnage but also to be able to get it out on a more consistent basis.
Q4: Finally, is there any news on Rainbow Rare Earths drilling yet?
A4: We announced at the end of June that the Phase II drilling campaign was committed to and would start and as I speak, the drill rig is turning on the Phase II drilling. That’s going to carry on at least until the end of August, getting ready for the calculation announcement of our maiden resource in Q4 which we’re very excited about.
