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Doug Bright and Matt Birney
Hastings Technology Metals has pulled a rabbit out of the hat after putting its foot on a 49 per cent stake in a brand new, bargain-priced rare earths hydrometallurgical plant in Thailand that has not yet fired a shot.
The plant, which was partially built in Thailand during the last rare earths/lithium boom but never commissioned, represents a fast-tracked pathway to cash flow for the ASX-listed Hastings as the global rare earths market once again reaches fever pitch.
It also represents a hard-to-ignore alternate processing pathway for Hastingsโ 40 per cent-owned Yangibana hard rock rare earths deposit in WA that it jointly owns with Billionaire Twiggy Forrestโs investment company, Wyloo.
The existing Yangibana plan is to beneficiate the ore in WA, courtesy of a yet-to-be-built hydromet plant. However, Wyloo CEO Luca Giocovazzi says the new plant in Thailand may represent a valuable strategic option for the joint venture.
โFor shareholders, this is a decisive turning point: low capex, low risk, and early cashflow.โฒ
Hastings Technology Metals chief executive officer Vince Catania
Giocovazzi said: โIt represents a capital–efficient downstream pathway and a fast route to market for one of the worldโs highest–grade NdPr deposits. Wyloo is working closely with Hastings and we look forward to jointly exploring the economic benefits of this processing option.โ
Hastings has inked a binding term sheet to acquire a 49 per cent stake in a Thai company, which owns the fully permitted hydrometallurgical processing plant at Kabin Buri in Thailand. Part of that deal will also see Hasting take majority board control of the operational entity that will run the plant.
The company says the deal effectively establishes a Southeast Asian production hub at a fraction of the cost and time it would take to build equivalent infrastructure in remote Western Australia.
Hastingโs will pay just US$15M (A$21.91M) for its 49 per cent stake, with a blend of equity, production-contingent deferred payments and commissioning costs funded up-front by the vendor, Singapore-based Enuo Holdings.
Hastings has paid a refundable US$0.5M (A$0.73M) deposit and expects to issue 23 million new shares at 50 cents apiece at closing, valuing the scrip portion at US$8M (A$11.68M).
An estimated US$5.5M (A$8.03M) is slated for payment over three annual instalments, subject to the plant achieving its operational and production goals.
Under the terms of the deal, Hastings will hold majority control of the board to help steer strategy, while Enuo will run the day-to-day plant operations.
Part of the challenge for newcomers to the rare earths business is processing know-how, and at face value at least, Hastingsโ new partner Enuo would appear to have plenty of that.
The Singaporean company operates a swathe of beneficiation plants, laboratories and mining projects spread across Africa and Southeast Asia, one of which is an operational rare earths mine in Africa that is expected to feed the new plant initially.
Notably, Enuo operates critical minerals smelting and separation plants, as well as rare metals waste recycling plants, in both China and Japan. Amongst a roll call of other critical minerals operations, it is heavily geared towards the more lucrative industrial magnet rare earths that are used in electric vehicles. These include praseodymium neodymium oxide, dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide โ all metals that Western sources are now clamouring for.
Yangibana also has a sizeable inventory of neodymium and praseodymium and may even represent a lucrative long-term feed source for the Thai plant.
The Kabin Buri processing facility is geared to process monazite-bearing rare earth concentrates into a mixed rare earth chloride.
That is a preferred intermediate stage on the downstream separation pathway because the product dissolves efficiently, involves lower reagent consumption and produces a cleaner feed for subsequent rare earths oxide refining.
Another positive for the Thai plantโs processing route is that the monazite-bearing concentrates conform to the type of material that Hastingsโ Yangibana project in WAโs northwest will produce.
Hastings Technology Metals chief executive officer Vince Catania said: โThis acquisition changes the trajectory for Hastings. By securing a ready-to-operate hydromet plant in Thailand, we gain a near-term production hub at a fraction of the cost of building new infrastructure in Australia and access to all necessary plant, equipment and operational infrastructure.โ
Hastings says the landholdings that underpin the new plant span some 80,000 square metres and include four buildings totalling about 10,000 square metres.
Hastings aims to commission the plant in the June and September quarters using third-party African monazite concentrate supplied by Enuo, before kicking off Stage 1 production at a goal rate of 5000 tonnes per annum of mixed rare earth chloride in the December quarter.
In the longer term, the company is considering a potential ramp-up to 30,000 tonnes per annum, with the flexibility to treat multiple third-party feedstocks. This could also include Yangibana concentrate if the JV partners assess it as a preferable route for Yangibana ore.
Hastings is also leaning into Thailandโs lower-cost operating profile and its pro-investment settings. The company intends to apply for Thailandโs โBoard of Investment promotionโ, which may provide a corporate income tax exemption for 8 to 13 years, coupled with duty and VAT exemptions for equipment, subject to prior approvals.
The new Thai move also has further relevance in light of an October 2025 memorandum of understanding between the United States and Thailand aimed at strengthening US critical minerals supply chains, a backdrop that could help the countryโs โ and Hastingsโ – ambitions to move further downstream.
With initial commissioning feedstock already lined up and downside protection built into the deal if closing doesnโt occur, Hastings appears to have found a pragmatic way to chase near-term cash flow while keeping its greater Yangibana ambitions firmly in view.
Fellow hard rock rare earths developer Lindian Resources also appears to have locked down a sublimely priced rare earths hydromet plant recently โ this time in Kazakhstan. Curiously, Lindian also picked up its plant for US$15m but says it would have cost up to US$500m to build from scratch. The market would appear to agree too, with Lindianโs stock hiking from 53c to 93c in the ten days after its plant acquisition and its market cap is now approaching an amazing $1.5b.
Hastings and Wyloo are sitting on a 21m-tonne ore reserve at Yangibana, grading 0.9 per cent total rare earth oxides. However, what sets it apart is its 37 per cent ratio of the more lucrative EV magnet rare earths of neodymium and praseodymium.
To put that in perspective, arguably the most revered rare earths operational mine in the world right now is MP Materialsโ Mountain Pass mine in the USA, which recently attracted almost a billion dollars in investment from the US Government and tech company Apple.
Whilst it does have a higher in-ground resource grade, notably the Mountain Pass neodymium and praseodymium ratio comes in at a much more modest 15-16 per cent. Hastings says its ore reaches up to 52 per cent neodymium and praseodymium in some places.
If the Kabin Buri plant in Thailand performs as planned, Hastings could soon be talking less about future plans and more about actual products heading out through the port gates, and who knows, this just might be a game-changer for Yangibana.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
