How do development, production, grade, recovery, and commodity-price assumptions shape the mine plan?
Model profile
Rare Earth Small-Scale Mining
An artisanal and small-scale rare earth mining enterprise or cooperative, set up for Nigeria or for any country you choose, and shipped as a bankable case: old tin-mine tailings screened and re-treated at 300 tonnes a day for monazite with tin, columbite and zircon, on a Bank of Industry loan. Other cases: the same tailings sold as they are in Jos today, alluvial monazite exported, a cooperative paying a toll plant, or an ionic clay leached to mixed rare earth carbonate. Tested the way a buyer and a lender would: the TREO grade, the NdPr price and what the buyer pays for it, the thorium, the co-products, the royalty, the rains, and debt sized on the cash the mine can service.
Decision scope
Questions this model helps you examine
What capital, operating cost, closure provision, and financing structure are required?
How do price, grade, recovery, cost, and schedule downside cases affect investment returns?
Model capabilities
What this model includes
The profile below is generated from the same catalogue and workspace definitions used by the application.
- A 10-year mine plan in per cent TREO, with a resource limit and an exploration stage
- Tailings, alluvial sand, ionic clay or hard rock, with drilling and blasting only for hard rock
- Own separation plant, toll separation, or a heap leach making mixed rare earth carbonate
- The product priced on its NdPr content at a payable share, less treatment charges and thorium penalties
- Tin, columbite, zircon and other co-products, each with its own price, payability and royalty
- Plant, equipment and crews that scale with throughput
- A researched Nigeria profile with the 2026 ad valorem royalties, and every other country selectable
- The radiation licence for the thorium, and the licence type, term, area and ownership rules
- Local-currency costs, and a local-currency or dollar loan
- Debt sized and sculpted on cash available for debt service, with a reserve, a lease and a buyer prepayment
- Cost per kilogram of TREO net of co-products, break-even NdPr price, payability and grade
- An NdPr price deck, named scenarios, an NPV tornado and a Monte Carlo
Build the case
Inputs and workspaces
- CasesLoad a country, or the bankable, Jos trader, monazite-only, export, cooperative or ionic clay case
- Mine and costsCountry, licence type, term and area, geology and resource, throughput, the NdPr price, unit costs, diesel and the local currency
- Mine planThroughput, utilisation, strip ratio, grade, recovery, price and payability by year
- SeasonalityHow the rains spread production across the months
- Processing and saleSeparation plant, toll plant or heap leach, product grade, the radiation licence, buyer terms and settlement
- Co-products, penalties, royalty and routeTin, columbite and other co-products, thorium and uranium penalties, the sliding-scale royalty and the ore and product route
- Staff and operating costsPositions, pay, start dates, sizing from productivity, and other operating expenses
- Initial costs and assetsStart-up costs, the four asset classes, replacement and the lease share
- FinancingEquity, the start-up gap, the term loan and its sizing, the reserve, the lease and the prepayment
- Fiscal and permitsTax regime, development levy, royalty, levies, the rehabilitation fund and VAT
- Valuation and riskCost of capital, rehabilitation and closure, the NdPr price deck and the Monte Carlo
- Due diligenceLicence, environment, radiation, offtake, resource, responsible sourcing, safety and the community agreement
Review the result
Outputs and analysis
- Project NPVUSD, at WACC
- Project IRRUnlevered, after tax
- WACCDiscount rate
- PaybackMonths
- Minimum DSCRYears principal is repaid
- Loan life cover ratioAt first repayment
- Term loanSized by the model
- Total fundingAll sources
- 20 additional metrics in the workspace
- Financial statementsDetailed schedules
- Lender view, mine plan, funding & valuationDetailed schedules
- Risk & analyticsDetailed schedules
Designed for review
Who this model is for
- Mine owners and project sponsors
- Technical and operating teams
- Financial advisers
- Investors and lenders
Governed evidence
The review trail stays with the result.
Each completed calculation preserves the model version, saved inputs, reporting-currency snapshot, immutable run, and result fingerprint used for its reports.
- Version-controlled calculation logic
- Saved assumptions and scenarios
- Immutable calculation runs
- Reporting context preserved in exports
Ready to explore the case?