Songwe Hill is a rare earths project being developed in south-eastern Malawi, a landlocked country in south-eastern Africa.
The project is owned by Canadian exploration and development company Mkango Resources through its subsidiary Lancaster Exploration. Three phases of exploration drilling were carried out at the property in 2011, 2012 and 2018, respectively.
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Mkango completed a technical report and upgraded mineral resource estimate for the rare earths project in January 2019. The definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the mine was completed in July 2022.
In January 2023, the Malawi Environmental Protection Agency approved the Environmental Social Health Impact Assesment (ESHIA) approval for the project. The ESHIA approval is a key requirement for Mkango to be granted a mining licence.
Mining at the Songwe Hill project is expected to commence in 2025. It is expected to produce a purified mixed rare earth carbonate concentrate and have an operating life of 18 years.
The development of the mine is estimated to entail an initial capital expenditure of $277.4m, excluding a contingency of $33.8m.
Location and Site details
Songwe Hill is situated between Lake Chilwa and the Mulanje Massif within the Phalombe administrative district, near to the eastern border of Malawi with Mozambique.
It is located within Retention Licence (RTL) 0001/21, one of a block of 11 retention licences that Mkango refers to as the ‘Phalombe Licences’.
The site is around 90km in a straight line from the commercial centre of Blantyre.
Songwe Hill can be reached via national highways S144 and S145 with paved roads running up to 12km of the project. Secondary gravel and dirt roads offer access to the exploration camp.
Geology and Mineralisation
The Songwe Hill project has been assessed as a carbonatite intrusion–breccia complex with a diameter of 800m. The carbonatites mainly exposed along the north-eastern slope of the property as well as in a smaller area along its north-western edge.
The principal lithologies are carbonatite, fenite, and breccias of fenite clasts with carbonatite matrix. The carbonatites are primarily grey calcic carbonatites, with subordinate ferrocarbonatites also occurring.
The rare earth element (REE) mineralisation occurs in the carbonatites, fenites and breccias.
Songwe Hill’s dominant REE-bearing minerals are synchysite and apatite.
The apatite is enriched in the heavy REE compared to apatites in most carbonatite deposits. The mineralisation is also deeply associated with strontianite and baryte.
Mineral Resource
In 2019, an updated Mineral Resource estimate of Songwe Hill project was announced. The Mineral Resource is open at depth.
The combined Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource Estimate totalled 21 million tonnes (Mt) grading 1.41% total rare earth oxides (TREO). This forms the basis of the mine plan in the DFS.
The Measured Mineral Resource Estimate represents 42% of the combined resource estimate.
The DFS supports the declaration of a Proven and Probable Mineral Reserve Estimate of 18.1Mt grading 1.16% TREO.
Mining and Processing
The mining method expected to be employed at Songwe will be conventional open-pit mining as around 95% of the Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource Blocks are located at a depth of less than 160m below the surface of the hill.
It will involve the use of small-scale trucks and diesel-hydraulic excavators, which will be selected on the basis of mining conditions and desired production rates.
The concentrator plant will produce a rare earth oxide concentrate, which will be then treated in a hydrometallurgical plant.
The hydrometallurgical plant will treat the flotation concentrate with an up-front gangue leach to dissolve the acid-consuming gangue minerals. The resultant mixed rare earth carbonate product is produced through subsequent purification and recovery stages.
The mixed rare earth carbonate concentrate will be transported to proposed Pulawy separation plant, where the concentrate will be separated into neodymium, praseodymium and / or didymium (NdPr) oxides as well as a heavy rare earth enriched carbonate and a lanthanum cerium carbonate for sale.
Production
The Songwe Hill project is expected to have an operating life of 18 years.
Mining is expected to start in February 2025 and production will be ramped up from July 2025.
The production will average around 5,954 tonnes per year of (TREO) for the first five years of full production.
This will include 1,953 tonnes per year of neodymium and praseodymium oxides, and 56 tonnes per year of dysprosium and terbium oxides, in a mixed rare earth carbonate grading 55% TREO.
Infrastructure
As Songwe Hill Project is a greenfield project, it has minimal infrastructure at the site.
The on-site infrastructure will include plant buildings, process plant site drainage, sewage disposal, water supply and communications among others. Primary water supply for mining operations will be groundwater.
The project will receive power from a 24MW solar facility as well as from the grid. Mkango is also assessing wind power sources to enhance the renewable power mix.
Contractors involved
Mkango hired SENET, a project management and engineering firm in Africa, as the principal consultant to complete the DFS.
Other consultants involved for DFS are The MSA Group (Geology, Mineral Resource, and Geotechnical Investigation), Bara Consulting (Mining), Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (Hydrometallurgy), KYSPY Investments and ALS Metallurgy (Flotation).
Epoch Resources offered support for Tailings Storage Facility, SGS Australia for Geochemistry, Western Geotechnical and Laboratory Services for Geotechnical testwork and C. Steinweg Bridge for Logistics.
The Environmental Social Health Impact Assessment (ESHIA) was undertaken by Digby Wells Environmental and Kongiwe Environmental.
The 2019 Mineral Resource Estimate was prepared by The MSA Group.
