Pensana Rare Earths gets $9m from Angola wealth fund to develop project

Pensana Rare Earths said on Monday that Angola’s sovereign wealth fund agreed to invest about $8.6 million in the company which will be used to develop the Longonjo project into a major rare earth mine.

The Fundo Soberano de Angola will subscribe for 13.5 million shares in the company, raising the fund’s stake to 23.1% from 17.7%.

Rare earths are a group of minerals, which includes neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) oxide, used in a range of products from iPhones to wind turbines.

Production of these crucial minerals is at present dominated by China, aside from a few exceptions like a Malaysian plant operated by Australia’s Lynas Corp.

The Angola-based Longonjo project is slated to be the “world’s first major rare earth mine to be brought online in over a decade”, the company said, after upgrading the mine’s NdPr oxide estimate by 35% only last week.

(By Soumyajit Saha; Editing by Kim Coghill)