Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd (LON:RBW) Chief Executive Officer Martin Eales caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the significant exploration upside at Gakara, the next steps for the company and first production & sales
Q1: Some exciting news out today, could you talk us through what is was that was actually announced?
A1: Yes, of course. What we’ve announced today are the results of a helicopter-borne aerial survey across our entire exploration license and what it’s identified are four very interesting highly prospective anomalies from the analysed data.
Now, why are these exciting? It’s because what we’re mining, of course, are rare earth veins across the deposit and geological theory has always postulated that the veins had emanated from a source and that source, for rare earths, is called a carbonatite, it’s a little similar to a kimberlite pipe where diamonds are found, it’s a large mass typically found under the surface that extends downwards.
The signals we’ve got from this aerial survey are highly encouraging and they certainly warrant further investigation as soon as we can and that will involve drilling.
Q2: What are the next steps for the company then, based on this?
A2: As I said, as funds allow, we’ll embark on a drilling campaign of all these anomalies plus something called Kiyenzi, on of our other prospective mining areas within the deposit, that’s where we found, originally some years ago, some very very high-grade boulders, typically in the bottom of the valley from the hills.
The geologists always thought those boulders had been dislodged from vein material or a deposit somewhere and what we did was called a gravity survey where you take readings of what’s under the ground, effectively, on a very tightly-spaced basis. That’s identified another quite large anomaly and this may be less a vein but a pool of material that has perhaps been caught by a geological feature of harder rock under the surface so that’s something else we’re very interested in and will to drill as soon as funds allow.
Q3: What can you tell us about first production and sales?
A3: Well, it’s been a key part of our strategy as the market knows, we want to make that target of first production and sales by the end of the year, I am conscious that we’re approaching the end of November so we’re nearly at the end of the year. We are very close, we have been working effectively with the various institutions of the government of Burundi and don’t forgot, although this used to be a mine, nobody sold any rare earth concentrate until 1978. So, there’s a bit of education to do and we’re working very well through their process and the company hopes to be able to announce that news very soon.
