Brazilian Rare Earths secures14.6M real co-funding
- Brazilian Rare Earths commissioned its Stage I pilot plant at Camaçari and secured additional partner co-funding for its Stage II facility.
- Partner contributions for Stage II reached 6.4 million Brazilian real, bringing total co-funding support for the Camaçari pilot plant to 14.6 million real.
- The company aims to advance metallurgical bulk test work for feasibility studies and target Stage II commissioning by the second quarter of 2027.
Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX:BRE) has commissioned its Stage I beneficiation pilot plant in Camaçari while securing additional co-funding for its Stage II hydrometallurgical facility.
The milestone follows the production of the company's first rare earth mineral concentrate, which transitions the project into a bulk-scale metallurgical test work programme for ongoing feasibility studies.
Bernardo da Veiga, CEO & Managing Director, stated, “The Stage II hydrometallurgical pilot plant programme will extend our systematic metallurgical evaluation through hydrometallurgical extraction and separation to produce NdPr oxide, heavy rare earth HRE+ concentrate and uranium yellowcake.”
The secondary stage of the programme has gained 6.4 million real in partner funding from SENAI CIMATEC, covering approximately 59% of the expected capital and operating expenditure for Stage II.
French rare earth separation specialist Carester will lead the project's separation workstream and support engineering designs for the planned rare earth refinery in Bahia, Brazil.
Following the announcement, the Brazilian Rare Earths share price was unchanged at $3.91.
The critical minerals explorer is focused on developing rare earth element deposits across its Rocha da Rocha province holdings in Bahia, Brazil.
The company previously updated its scoping study for the integrated Monte Alto Project in August, outlining baseline unit costs of US$21/kg NdPr equivalent.
