The Zandkopsdrift Project

Zandkopsdrift

Overview

Zandkopsdrift is located 450km north of Cape Town along the N7 paved highway.

Zandkopsdrift is fully permitted, with all mining, environmental, access, social and labour plans in place. Frontier has also acquired the entire land area on which the Zandkopsdrift mine, tailings and related infrastructure will be located.

Frontier plans to produce 17,000 tonnes of rare earths including 4,000 tonnes of magnet rare earths and 100,000 tonnes of battery grade manganese sulphate per annum. The Zandkopsdrift mineral reserves are sufficient to support a 45+ year mine life at target production levels.

Frontier plans to commence a Definitive Feasibility Study in 2023 with commercial production targeted to commence in 2027.

Feasibility Studies

Frontier has completed a Preliminary Feasibility Study on Zandkopsdrift (updated 2022) which has confirmed the technical and financial feasibility of the project. The PFS was prepared in compliance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 technical reporting requirements.

The PFS was overseen by Venmyn Deloitte and undertaken by leading South African and international consultants including Worley Parsons, Veolia, Metso Outotec and SNC Lavalin (engineering design), SGS, Mintek and ANSTO (metallurgical testwork), and MSA and Sound Mining Solutions (resource estimation, reserve estimation and mine planning). 

Pit Design and Drill Hole TREO Grades

pit

Mineral Reserves

Frontier has completed over 20,000 metres of drilling at Zandkopsdrift which has been sufficient to define proven and probable mineral reserves of 800,000 tonnes of rare earths and 2m tonnes of manganese oxide, sufficient for a 45+ year mine life at target production rates.

Zandkopsdrift Rare Earth Distribution and Planned Production

The Zandkopsdrift deposit has a very favourable distribution of critical rare earth elements, particularly those elements used in magnet applications such as EV motors and wind turbines – neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium.

At target annual production of 17,000 tonnes Zandkopsdrift will produce 4,000 tonnes of magnet rare earths. These magnet rare earth elements will represent 94% of Zandkopsdrift rare earth production by value.
Element
Production p.a. (Tonnes)
Reserves (Tonnes)
Relative RE Distribution
Lanthanum
200,100
4,159
25.36%
Cerium
347,300
7,545
44.02%
Praseodymium
36,500
866
4.63%
Neodymium
125,400
2,959
15.89%
Samarium
17,900
445
2.27%
Europium
4,700
114
0.60%
Gadolinium
11,200
268
1.42%
Terbium
1,400
32
0.18%
Dysprosium
6,200
143
0.79%
Holmium
1,000
23
0.13%
Erbium
2,600
56
0.33%
Thulium
300
7
0.04%
Ytterbium
1,700
36
0.22%
Lutetium
200
5
0.03%
Yttrium
32,500
743
4.12%
Total
789,000
17,400
100%
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