Sovereign Metals (AIM:SVML) shares gained 10.45%, to 37p, after it told investors that it had identified potential premium-priced rare-earth resources in tailings.
The company, in a statement, reported the findings of the Project Blue price study and the DFS monazite concentrate analysis.
The independent study prepared for Sovereign indicates a 2026 base-case price of US$16,000/t (high case US$19,000/t) for a 60% TREO monazite concentrate, versus a Shanghai Metals Market benchmark price of US$6,142/t for comparable TREO, and Kasiya retains a US$2.2 billion pre-tax NPV8 in the DFS.
Assays show Kasiya's TREO basket contains on average 2.5% combined DyTb and 11.8% yttrium versus 0.4% and 1.7% respectively for the world's five largest rare-earth producers, with near-surface (0-6 million) highs up to 3.1% DyTb and 17.2% yttrium.
The monazite concentrates were recovered from the non-conductor tailings stream of the DFS flowsheet, which Sovereign says could allow recovery with no additional mining and no new primary processing circuit, although further work is required on downstream separation and radioactive element handling.
"These results confirm that the monazite-hosted rare earth content ... is present in pits scheduled for the early years of production at Kasiya," said Managing Director and CEO Frank Eagar.
Sovereign said it has not entered any offtake agreements and will progress detailed mineralogical characterisation, additional metallurgical testwork, grade and recovery studies and a study to quantify the economic uplift from incorporating monazite into the DFS.
