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On 27 March 2019, Hastings Technology Metals Limited (ASX: HAS), a rare earths exploration company in Western Australia from the metals and mining sector, announced that Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) has given an indication, that they will be further investigating their potential to provide debt finance for the Yangibana Rare Earths Project (Yangibana Project).
The Yangibana Project contains neodymium and praseodymium, which forms vital elements of permanent magnets. These 2 also form a part of an essential component in numerous high-tech products like electric vehicles, renewable energy wind turbines, robotics, medical applications etc. Through the development of the Yangibana Project, it is expected that regions such as Gascoyne, Carnarvon and Meekatharra of Northern Australia will also be deriving the benefit, in the form of employment and business opportunities to many people.
Also, the Executive Chairman, HAS, Mr Charles Lew highlighted that Shires of Upper Gascoyne and Carnarvon had minimal economic development for quite a few years now. Once the Yangibana project is into production mode, it will provide long-term opportunity for HAS to work within these community, as well as provide benefit to them.
He further added that if the funding was made available by NAIF, the company will push ahead, with its stated goal of construction, that is expected to start in the second half of this year.
NAIF is a major initiative taken by the government of Australia and has access to A$5 billion lending facility. It can give an array of loan concessions, to aid in infrastructure development that generates public benefit for North Australian region.
The company at present, has started the preparation of investment proposal for NAIFâs consideration. HAS considers it to be a significant milestone in companyâs engagement with NAIF, as well as possibly gain debt finance for the project. However, the company has also clarified that NAIF has not come to any decision, to offer any debt finance and there is no surety that the parties will reach to an agreement.
The due diligence of NAIF is under process, and it will receive assistance from HAS, in case of any further specific requirement by NAIF, in order to facilitate the process of seeking approval for the debt financing towards Yangibana Project.
On 21 March 2019, the company announced that from the initial sample sent for ore sorting testing, it had received encouraging results. In the initial ore sorting test, from the total mass supplied, about 37% got rejected, while it retained 92.2% of the TREO (total rare earth oxide). The best improvement was seen in the fraction of size, ranging between 8mm to 25mm, where there was an upgrade of 157% in the TREO grade. The ore sorting results gave an indication, that there is a potential for further optimization of processing.
On 18 March 2019, HAS notified the market, that significant equipment supply contracts were awarded to TAPC And Outotec by the company.
In the prior 6 months period, the stock of the company has generated a return of 5.26%. Its YTD performance further improved, where the stock has given a return of 37.93%. By the closure of the trading period, on 27 March 2019, the price of the stock stood at A$0.195, down 2.5%. The company has a market capitalization of A$155.62 million and around 778.08 million outstanding shares.
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