George Bennett Bets on Low-Cost Rare Earths at Rainbow’s Phalaborwa Project

The rare earth industry is littered with failed promises and overhyped projects, but George Bennett, CEO and Director of Rainbow Rare Earths Limited (LSE: RBW), insists his company is carving out a path defined by low costs, chemical ingenuity, and near-term production. “We are very low capital intensity for a typical rare earth development project,” Bennett said in a recent conversation. “We are circa $300 million of capex to build a plant that's going to separate NdPr (neodymium-praseodymium) to 99.5% purity, and we're going to produce the SEG+* group which will have our heavies in that—dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb).”Rainbow Rare Earths has positioned itself not as a traditional miner but as a pioneer in chemical processing, extracting rare earths from phosphogypsum waste—residues that have already undergone the “cracking” step that many competitors struggle with. “We’re not your typical rare earth so-called miner. We're more of a chemical processing plant with IP and tech at our fingertips,” Bennett explained. At the Phalaborwa project in South Africa, 35 million tons of phosphogypsum grading 0.44% TREO sit above ground, chemically cracked and ready for processing. “Two-thirds of our flow sheet in Rainbow comes at zero cost to us before we start separating the rare earths,” Bennett emphasized, framing this as a decisive economic advantage.That economic edge is beginning to show tangible progress. Rainbow recently announced the successful completion of its cerium (Ce) depletion step, a milestone in optimizing its flowsheet. “We've been able to achieve 65% depletion of our cerium content in our feed stream, which means we have to treat about 27% less metal in the final separation circuit,” Bennett said. The advancement, confirmed in a September 22 news release, reduces both capex and opex. As he put it, “We'll be separating our rare earths at an equivalent value of below $13/kg. In fact, we will be less than that when we publicize our optimized numbers.”The Phalaborwa basket itself is unusually rich: 29.1% NdPr, among the highest globally, with economic levels of dysprosium and terbium in the SEG+ group. Bennett noted that this model mirrors the early career strategy of Lynas Rare Earths (ASX: LYC), which for years sold its SEG+ production to China. But Rainbow plans to go further, leveraging offtake contracts and possibly building a heavy rare earth separation plant in the U.S., Europe, or Japan with external funding. “Since the REA conference in Montreal a couple of months ago, we had a significant increase in offtake discussions,” he said. He pointed to the U.S. Department of Defense’s contract with MP Materials (NYSE: MP) as setting a precedent: “$110 per kg for NdPr has set a benchmark. We saw the Chinese, since that deal was announced, move the price up to about $82–$84/kg today.”South Africa, Bennett argued, provides a natural advantage: a brownfield site with established infrastructure, access to reagents, and low labor costs. “We've still got amazing engineering and technology available to us with the skills in South Africa, and this is on our doorstep at a very low cost for Rainbow,” he said. He added that the Rainbow team has designed and built over 80 process plants worldwide—experience that positions them to deliver on timelines.Those timelines are now in sharp focus. Rainbow plans to finalize its separation circuit design within months, and optimization results are expected to further strengthen project economics. “There’s a lot of good news coming out over the next three to four months,” Bennett noted, highlighting a parallel development in Brazil. The Uberaba project, a joint venture with Mosaic, could eclipse Phalaborwa with higher grades and longer life. “It'll be larger and will make Rainbow the only company in the world that I'm aware of that's got country diversification and project diversification,” he said.