Lindian Celebrates The Landmark First Engineering Contract For The Rare Earth Project in Malawi
Feb 11, 2025
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Lindian Resources has awarded a new contract for roads and civil works for its Kangankunde rare earth project in Malawi to leading European construction company Mota-Engil, which the company sees as a milestone.
The US $1.3 million (AU $2.07 million) contract is the first awarded by Lindian to advance the Kangankunde rare earth project. The work is expected to take 18 weeks to complete and includes the main road access, 5 km of internal access and other site works in the leased area.
Following a comprehensive tendering process, Lindian awarded the contract to Mota-Engil, a publicly listed Portuguese company. Since 1990, Mota-Engil has been involved in some of the largest engineering and construction projects in Malawi, including the largest railway project in Africa in the last 50 years.
The group also has port management experience through its Malawi Shipping Company, which has four 35-year port concessions.
Lindian sees Mota-Engil's strong reputation for delivering high-quality projects globally as critical, and says its new partnership will strengthen Kangankunde's reputation as one of the most important rare earth projects in the world.
Due to its high-grade, low-cost potential, Kangankunde has recently been highlighted as one of the most promising rare earth projects in the world. Kangankunde has just secured a US $50 million (AU $8.1 million) financing agreement and offtake program from US commodities trader Gerald Metals Group, is fully approved and ready to move on to the next stage of development.
The initial ore reserves of this large-scale project are 23.7 million tons, the average grade of rare earth oxides is 2.9% of the total rare earth oxides, and the mine life is 45 years.
The study shows that the project can produce about 15,300 tons of clean, high-grade total rare earth oxide concentrate per year, of which the total rare earth oxide is 8,400 tons and the magnet rare earth neodymium and praseodymium are 1,640 tons.
The award of this contract is an important milestone for the Lindian and Concankunde projects. This will demonstrate to the people of Malawi and the investment market Lindian's commitment to moving the project forward. Choosing Mota-Engil as our first development partner is an important step that, over time, may even lead to their broader involvement in other work packages.
Alwyn Vorster, CEO of Lindian Resources
Lindian management recently met with representatives of the Malawian government and said they received strong government support for the project, including from the new mining minister.
Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world. Its economy is largely based on agriculture, with a large and growing rural population. For the region, Lindian's Cancankunde project provides significant new jobs and small business opportunities, as well as improved local transport connectivity.
Significantly for its investors, Forest Power is in the final stages of securing other key commercial agreements for the project, including a fixed-price processing plant and power supply contract.
The company said it will work this quarter to identify project financing solutions that will pave the way for the start of construction of the processing plant shortly thereafter.
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