Steenkampskraal Monazite Mine in South Africa’s Western Cape officially opened Phase 1 of the Steenkampskraal project this week, with Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe performing the opening alongside the electricity minister and the leadership of Mintek and the Council for Geoscience. The plant consists of a comminution circuit, spiral and multi-gravity separator circuits and two flotation circuits, built to produce 15 tonnes an hour of monazite concentrate for the export market. Steenkampskraal says it has secured a number of offtake agreements, with first shipments planned before the end of 2026.
The grade is the story. The deposit carries about 14.5 percent total rare earth oxides and about 2.1 percent thorium, which executive director Robbie Louw described as the highest-known rare earth grade in the world, roughly ten times a typical deposit. Because the rare earths are hosted in monazite rather than fluoro-carbonates, concentration uses conventional gravity separation and flotation refined from the mine’s 1950s flowsheet and confirmed by Mintek and the Saskatchewan Research Council.
Phase 2 will cover monazite cracking into a mixed rare earth product with thorium recovery, and Phase 3 is separation into individual rare earth oxides using solvent extraction already piloted at Mintek. The technical bridge is the June 2026 milestone in which Steenkampskraal and Mintek produced a high-purity mixed rare earth product, making South Africa the first African country to do so through a mine-research institution partnership. Executive chairman Enock Mathebula framed the aim as beneficiating in-country rather than exporting the resource raw, with the Industrial Development Corporation having funded the capacity expansion. The longer-term plan, with the nuclear regulator Necsa ready to collaborate, extends to thorium fuel and medical-isotope production.