BUJUMBURA — Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd., the operator of the Gakara rare-earth project in western Burundi, has released a revised mineral resource statement showing measured and indicated tonnage of 1.14 million tonnes at an average total rare-earth oxide grade of 47.3 per cent — more than double the tonnage reported in the 2023 estimate and confirming Gakara as one of the highest-grade rare-earth deposits anywhere in the world.
The upgrade is the product of an eighteen-month infill drilling programme funded through a strategic partnership with a South Korean chemicals group and executed by a Nairobi-based contractor. Of the 87 diamond holes drilled since the start of the programme, all but four returned intercepts above the project’s 20 per cent cut-off grade — a hit rate that Rainbow’s chief geologist, Dr. Cesarine Bigirimana, described in a briefing as “exceptional by any global standard.”
Gakara has a complicated history. Small-scale production between 2017 and 2021 was suspended after a dispute with the Burundian government over export terms and a subsequent decree suspending all mineral exports pending policy review. A revised mining convention was signed in late 2024, providing for a 15 per cent free-carried government stake and an increased royalty on the neodymium-praseodymium fraction, and clearing the path for a full restart.
The updated resource is the key input to a Definitive Feasibility Study now scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2027. Rainbow has previously indicated that a positive DFS would support a construction decision in mid-2027 and first commercial production by late 2028, targeting a nameplate capacity of roughly 5,000 tonnes of separated neodymium-praseodymium oxide per year — small on a global scale, but strategically significant given the concentration of current production in China.
The Ministry of Hydraulics, Energy and Mines described the drilling results as “a decisive validation” of the revised convention and reiterated the government’s commitment to seeing Gakara through to production. Financing, rather than geology or policy, is now the principal outstanding question. Rainbow has said it intends to fund the construction phase through a combination of offtake-linked debt and a further equity injection from its Korean partner; a formal announcement is expected alongside the DFS.
