Australian mining firm Lindian Resources Limited has said it expects mining activities at its Kangankunde Rare Earth Mine in Balaka to start in 2026.
Lindian Resources Chief Executive Officer Alwyn Vorster told Times Business that the firm has concluded feasibility studies on the mine and that it is now looking for $40 million in funding to start construction works at the mine.
Vorster was hopeful that construction works at the mine should start around October or November this year.
The Kangankunde Rare Earths Project is a globally significant rare earth resource in potential for size, grade and quality.
Kangankunde is a carbonatite with variable contents of iron oxide, manganese oxide and pink potassic alteration.
To date all the carbonatite assayed has been mineralised with Rare Earths elements hosted in the mineral monazite. A typical monazite contains various quantities of light Rare Earths.
The monazite at Kangankunde has an unusual variation including Rare Earths elements like Praseodymium (Pr) and low Thorium levels.
“Malawi, at the moment, only has three or four bigger mining projects in development stage. We believe Kangankunde is an absolute gift to Malawi in terms of the quality and size of that ore body and we want to make that a success.
“We want to make it an undergear or two undergear project which benefits five to six generations of the Malawian people,” Vorster said.
He observed that his firm would develop and train the Malawian people to participate during the production phase of the project.
“There will be many trades that we will need such as welders, boiler makers and so on. So, there will be an investment in trades people. And then there are many other types of roles that we will need in terms of mining related contractors, process engineering contractors and we hope from the Malawian economy we can recruit some of these trades to help us,” Vorster said.
Kangankunde Project Consultant Engineer Trevor Hiwa said Malawi stands to benefit a lot from the project.
Kangankunde is located 90 kilometres north of the city of Blantyre, the main economic and commercial centre in Malawi.
President Lazarus Chakwera has identified mining as one of the key pillars to propel growth of the local economy alongside agriculture, tourism and manufacturing.
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