Lindian Resources Limited announced the maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the Kangankunde Rare Earths Project in Malawi of 261 million tonnes averaging 2.19% TREO above a 0.5% TREO cutoff grade. The resource is entirely Inferred status, has been estimated in accordance with JORC 2012 guidelines. The Kangankunde Rare Earths Project is located in the south of Malawi, 90 km north of the city of Blantyre.

The mineral tenements include a Medium Scale Mining Licence (MML0290/22) which is surrounded by Exploration Licence EPL0514/18R. The Exploration and Mining Licences have an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Licence No.2:10:16 issued under the Malawi Environmental Management Act No. 19 of 2017.Both licences are in good standing with no known impediments.

On 1 August 2022 Lindian announced the acquisition of 100% of Malawian registered Rift Valley Resource Developments Limited (Rift Valley) and its 100% owned title to Exploration Licence EPL0514/18R and Mining Licence MML0290/22. Under the terms of the Transaction, Lindian has an agreement to acquire all the shares in Rift Valley from its existing shareholders for US$30 million, payable in tranches. To date, Lindian has paid US$20.0 million in cash and is the registered owner of 67% of the shares in Rift Valley.

The remaining amount of USD 10.0 million is due 48 months from the signature date of the Share Purchase Agreement, or on the commencement of production at which time the remaining 33% of the shares in Rift Valley will be transferred to Lindian. The Kangankunde Hill rises to a height of up to 200 m above the surrounding plain. The deposit contains a central zone of carbonatite rocks passing outwards to a series of zones of altered breccias of varying composition of carbonatite and wall rock clasts in a carbonatite matrix, and ultimately into unaltered gneiss host rock.

Similar to many rare earth deposits, the main rare earth containing mineral in the deposit is monazite. Estimation domaining utilised multi-element relationships from minor rock chemistry and rare earth mineralisation to define five domains within the overall carbonatite limits. These domains were assessed against geological understanding and field observations from surface mapping and drill core and were considered appropriate representations of the mineralisation distribution.

Leapfrog was utilised to build mineralisation domain wireframes and to code sample intervals with the applicable domain. Drilling completed at the Kangankunde Rare Earths Project and used to support the MRE includes eight diamond core (DD) holes, 76 reverse circulation (RC) holes, and 7 RC holes with diamond core tails (RCD) for a total of 15,831 m. All holes are drilled from surface with various orientations depending on terrain constraints. RC drilling utilised a 5.25" (134 mm) face sampling hammer to generate one-metre samples, which are placed into large plastic bags marked with the hole ID and sample interval.

Sample weights are recorded for each sample, with recovery maximised via use of PVC collars in upper portions of the collar. Diamond drilling used a HQ triple tube size (~61.1 mm diameter) with the triple tube techniques used to maximise core recovery. NQ core was used for deeper drill holes.

Drill core was collected from a core barrel and placed in appropriately marked core trays. Down hole core run depths were measured and marked with core blocks. Core was measured for core loss and core photography and geological logging completed.

Samples from the RC drilling are collected on one-metre intervals from the rig mounted cyclone and placed into large plastic bags. These are subsequently split using a two-tier riffle splitter to obtain a ¼ sub-sample. This is subsequently reduced in a single-tier riffle splitter to generate an A and B sample reduced to a nominal 1.5 kg.

Sample lengths for diamond drilling were determined by geological boundaries with a maximum sample length of 2 metres applied. The core was cut using an electric core saw. Quarter core was submitted to ALS for chemical analysis using industry standard sample preparation and analytical techniques.

Certified reference materials (CRM), analytical blanks, and field duplicates were used as part of the QAQC procedures and were each inserted at a rate of 1:20 samples. All samples were dispatched by air freight direct to ALS laboratory in Johannesburg for sample preparation. Following sample preparation, a 30-gram pulverised sub-sample is shipped to ALS Perth Australia for analysis.

Sample preparation included whole sample crushing to 70% less than 2mm, Boyd rotary slitting to generate a 750g sub-sample, and pulverising to achieve better than 85% passing 75 microns. Analysis for REE suite was via Lithium Borate Fusion ICP-MS (ALS code ME-MS81h), with elements analysed at ppm levels. This method is considered a total analysis.

Insitu dry bulk density was determined using the Archimedes method on a 20 metre downhole interval from available core drilling. A total of 96 samples were tested with dry bulk density ranging from 2.08 g/cm3 to 3.45 g/cm3 with the average of 2.95 g/cm3 used in resource estimation. Future work should include more testing and establishment of a grade density relationship if possible.