Extraction / Resources & Sovereignty
Pensana Rare Earths has announced an $11 million drilling and metallurgical testwork programme at its Longonjo project in Angola, designed to increase the JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate from 313 million tonnes at 1.43% total rare earth oxides (TREO) to over one billion tonnes at a similar grade. If achieved, Longonjo would rank among the largest rare earth deposits ever developed. The programme, which began in early 2026, includes 25,000 metres of vertical core drilling to extend the near-surface neodymium-praseodymium-rich TREO blanket, currently averaging about 30 metres in depth, down to over 100 metres. Previous drilling has confirmed that mineralisation continues well beyond 100 metres directly beneath the existing resource. The spend is modest by mining standards. The ambition is not.
Pensana has invested $70 million over six years on exploration, technical and environmental studies at Longonjo, located in the Huambo district approximately 350 kilometres southeast of Luanda. The deposit comprises a near-surface weathered blanket of rare earth oxides, rich in the magnet metals neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) that are critical for permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, AI hardware and advanced manufacturing. The JORC-compliant ore reserve stands at 22 million tonnes grading 3.04% TREO, containing 139,457 tonnes of NdPr oxide, making it one of the world’s largest and highest-grade undeveloped magnet metal rare earth deposits. The projected mine life exceeds 20 years.
Construction at Longonjo is advancing. Lycopodium and ProProcess are handling engineering services. The scrubber package has been awarded to Cobar in South Africa. The flash dryer and acid mixer package has been awarded to Ingetecsa in Spain, with manufacturing scheduled from March 2026. Commissioning is targeted for 2027. Initial annual production will be 20,000 tonnes of mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC), yielding approximately 2,400 tonnes of NdPr and 73 tonnes of heavy magnet metals dysprosium and terbium. Phase 2 doubles output to 40,000 tonnes of MREC, producing 4,200 tonnes of NdPr and 122 tonnes of DyTb post-2030. At full capacity, Longonjo would represent approximately 5% of global rare earth production, all outside Chinese control.
The supply chain architecture is where Longonjo’s significance extends beyond the mine gate. Pensana has partnered with Vacuumschmelze’s eVAC Magnetics facility in Sumter, South Carolina, to establish a mine-to-magnet supply chain linking Angola directly to the United States. The eVAC facility initially targets 2,000 tonnes per annum of permanent magnets, scaling to 12,000 tonnes by 2029. The structure is designed to supply OEM-backed magnet production for the US defence, automotive and clean energy sectors. Financing for Longonjo includes a $160 million debt facility from the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM), underscoring the US government’s strategic interest in the project as part of its broader effort to diversify rare earth supply away from Chinese dominance.
The geopolitical context is the frame that gives the project its strategic weight. China currently controls approximately 60% of global rare earth mining, 90% of processing, and the vast majority of permanent magnet manufacturing. Western governments have identified this concentration as a critical vulnerability, particularly for defence applications (precision-guided munitions, jet engines, satellite systems) and clean energy infrastructure (EV motors, wind turbine generators). The US, EU and their allies have launched multiple critical minerals strategies in the past three years, but the number of non-Chinese rare earth projects at construction stage remains limited. Longonjo, linked to US financing, US downstream processing and the Lobito Corridor for logistics, is one of the most advanced.
The Lobito Corridor connection is operationally significant. Longonjo sits within the Huambo district, along the rehabilitated Benguela Railway that forms the Angolan section of the Lobito Corridor. The project can transport its MREC output by rail to the port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast, then by sea to the eVAC facility in South Carolina. This logistics chain, backed by the same US-financed corridor infrastructure documented elsewhere in this series, provides a physical link between an African mine and an American factory that does not pass through any Chinese processing node. For a supply chain designed to be independent of Chinese infrastructure, the geography and logistics matter as much as the geology.
The shallow, weathered nature of the Longonjo deposit provides operational advantages that lower both risk and cost relative to hard-rock rare earth deposits. Weathered deposits require less pre-stripping, enable earlier cash flow generation, and offer superior metallurgical processing characteristics because natural weathering has chemically altered the mineral assemblages to enhance leachability and reduce impurity content. The planned 10-by-10-metre drill grid spacing represents industry best practice for grade control in advanced rare earth projects.
The risks are real and documented. Pensana remains pre-revenue. Its auditors have flagged going-concern notes. The company’s share price has risen over 250% as the Longonjo narrative has gained traction, but the valuation is built entirely on forward-looking assumptions about construction completion, commissioning, production ramp-up and offtake. The $160 million EXIM debt facility is the financial backbone, but its disbursement is contingent on continued progress. Country risk in Angola, while lower than in the Sahel, remains a factor: policy timing, regulatory implementation and the broader macroeconomic environment in a country transitioning from oil dependency to economic diversification all affect the project timeline. The question of whether funding, construction and logistics can all align in time to meaningfully support US rare earth supply is the central execution challenge.
The drill campaign itself introduces a distinct analytical question. Expanding a resource from 313 million to over one billion tonnes is a geological statement, not an economic one. The value of a rare earth deposit depends less on total tonnage than on grade, mineralogy, processing cost and downstream integration. A one-billion-tonne resource at 1.43% TREO is geologically impressive. Whether it changes the project economics depends on how the additional tonnage affects mine planning, processing configuration and the economics of scale in MREC production. The drill programme includes metallurgical sampling and testwork designed to answer precisely this question.
Longonjo represents a test case for whether Western critical minerals strategies can move from announcements to production. The resource is large. The grade is high. The downstream link to the US is formalised. The financing is partially secured. The logistics corridor exists. What remains is execution: completing construction, commissioning on time, achieving metallurgical recovery targets, and producing MREC at the quality and cost that the US magnet supply chain requires. If Pensana delivers, Longonjo becomes a reference project for non-Chinese rare earth supply from Africa. If it does not, it becomes another illustration of the gap between critical minerals ambition and industrial reality.