Name of the Project
Kwyjibo rare earth element (REE) project.

Location
The project is located 125 km north-east of Sept-Îles, Quebec, Canada.

Client
The project is a 50:50 joint venture between Focus Graphite and SOQUEM, with SOQUEM acting as operator.

Project Description
A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) has determined that the Kwyjibo REE project is unique in Quebec in terms of geological setting, style of mineralisation and economic potential.

The Kwyjibo mineralisation system comprises six historical showings, distributed in a 4-km-long corridor, with the main iron/REE mineralisation being the Josette Horizon.

The Josette Horizon is divided into two zones: Josette Northeast and Josette Southwest.

The combined resource for the Josette Northeast and Josette Southwest zones is 6.92-million tonnes grading 2.72% total rare-earth oxides (TREO) in the measured and indicated categories and 1.33-million tonnes grading 3.64% TREO in the inferred category.

The PEA focuses exclusively on the Josette Northeast zone and envisages the mining and milling of REE-bearing magnetitite material from an underground mine, with a mine life of ten years and a concentrator located on the Kwyjibo property. Processing includes crushing, grinding, magnetic separation, thickening and filtering of run-of-mine.  The TREO concentrate produced at the on-site mill will be shipped to a hydrometallurgical plant located outside the mine site.

The hydrometallurgical processing plant is designed to transform REE concentrate into three separate refined rare-earth oxide products for production of 9 500 t/y of TREO. The hydrometallurgical process leaches the concentrate in three steps using solid conversion and is completed by a multistage solvent extraction process to produce neodymium/praseodymium oxides, dysprosium oxide and a combination of the remaining rare-earth and yitrium oxides.

The magnetic separation at the concentrator is designed to produce a 7% TREO concentrate, with a recovery of 96%. The recovery of TREO from concentrate processed at the hydrometallurgical plant is 78%. The over-all TREO recovery is estimated at 75%. Concentrate production is estimated at 174 000 t/y.

The project has a ten-year life-of-mine (LoM), with total LoM production estimated at 3.55-million tonnes grading 3.29% TREO.

The Kwyjibo REE deposit remains open at depth, with the potential to increase mine life through additional drilling and technical studies.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has an estimated base case pretax net present value, at an 7% discount rate, of C$572.9-million and an internal rate of return of 21.4%, with a payback of 3.4 years.

These figures are based on a basket price of C$2.81/kg of TREO.

Value
The project is estimated at C$723.6-million.

Duration
Not stated.

Latest Developments
None stated.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
Met-Chem (PEA).

On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
Focus Graphite CEO Gary Economo, tel +1 613241 4040 or email geconomo@focusgraphite.com.
SOQUEM CEO Olivier Grondin, tel +1 819874 3773 or email olivier.grondin@soquem.qc.ca.