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The Australian-listed company has signed technology, engineering and long-term offtake agreements with French rare earth specialist Carester for a proposed 8,000 t/y rare earth oxide solvent extraction and separation facility at Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan.

The agreement represents a significant expansion of Lindian's strategy beyond mining and concentrate production, while creating a potential supply route connecting African rare earth resources with Kazakhstan's processing infrastructure and a downstream facility in France backed by French and Japanese government-linked funding.

The development comes as governments seek to diversify critical mineral supply chains and reduce exposure to concentrated processing capacity, particularly in rare earths.

Highlights

• Lindian, Carester and Tetra Tech are advancing a DFS for an 8,000 t/y REO solvent extraction and oxide separation facility at Stepnogorsk
• Carester will purchase 70% of SEGH carbonate production under an initial 10-year offtake agreement, with two five-year extension options
• The proposed facility is designed to produce NdPr oxide at greater than 99.5% purity, alongside heavy rare earth products
• Caremag's downstream facility in France has secured €216 million in French and Japanese funding
• Lindian plans to connect its Kangankunde monazite resource in Malawi with processing operations in Kazakhstan and downstream European demand
• Kazakhstan's Ministry of Industry and Construction has formally backed the project as part of the country's ambitions to develop a domestic rare earth value chain

A supply chain stretching across three continents

The strategic significance of the agreement lies in its geography.

Lindian's Kangankunde project in Malawi is intended to provide a long-term source of NdPr-rich monazite concentrate. That material can feed into Lindian's processing platform in Kazakhstan, before the company's planned downstream production is connected to Caremag in France. It is a model that reflects how the global critical minerals industry is evolving.

Rather than a simple mine-to-market supply chain, companies and governments are increasingly attempting to build geographically diversified networks spanning resource-rich countries, processing centres, technology providers and end users. For Africa, the challenge is to ensure that the continent's mineral endowment translates into a greater share of the value generated along those chains.

Lindian's approach illustrates both the opportunity and the complexity.

While the mineral resource is African, significant downstream value creation is planned outside Malawi, with Kazakhstan providing the processing base and France the downstream separation and refining destination. That makes the project relevant to the broader debate around Africa's position in the emerging critical-minerals economy.

“International cooperation” becomes critical

Carester President Frédéric Carencotte described the partnership as an example of how industrial cooperation can strengthen critical raw material supply chains.

“Lindian’s established SARECO processing platform in Kazakhstan, combined with our separation technology will provide a long-term MHREC and SEGH feedstock security for our French plant and demonstrates how close industrial cooperation can reinforce the critical raw materials value chain.”

The comment reflects an increasingly important reality in rare earths: securing mineral resources is only one part of the supply-chain challenge. Processing and separation capacity are equally strategic.

Rare earth mining can produce concentrate but converting that material into the high-purity oxides required by permanent magnet manufacturers requires technically sophisticated processing infrastructure.

This is where Kazakhstan becomes central to Lindian's strategy.

Kazakhstan seeks a bigger role in rare earths

Kazakhstan is seeking to move beyond its traditional position as a mineral producer and develop greater domestic processing capacity. The country's Ministry of Industry and Construction described Lindian's proposed separation project as an important next stage in developing Kazakhstan's rare earth industry.

“The project has the potential to establish an important position for Kazakhstan in the global rare earth supply chain, connecting resources, processing capabilities and markets across the globe.”

The ministry also said the project supports Kazakhstan's ambition to become a significant producer of permanent magnet materials. That ambition places the Lindian project within a wider geopolitical competition to establish alternative critical-mineral supply chains.

For Kazakhstan, attracting downstream processing provides an opportunity to increase the value generated domestically from its mineral resources while strengthening its position between resource producers and major industrial markets.

For Lindian, the country offers established industrial infrastructure that could potentially reduce the cost and complexity of developing a new separation operation.

Africa's critical minerals opportunity

The African dimension begins with Kangankunde.

Lindian is developing the project in Malawi as a potential long-term source of monazite concentrate rich in neodymium and praseodymium - two rare earth elements central to permanent magnets. But the project also highlights a persistent structural issue for African mining.

The continent contains substantial mineral resources critical to the energy transition, yet much of the higher-value processing and manufacturing capacity remains concentrated elsewhere. The development of processing and refining capacity has consequently become a major policy objective across Africa.

The Lindian model does not solve that challenge on its own, but it demonstrates the commercial logic behind building partnerships across jurisdictions rather than attempting to establish every stage of the value chain in a single country. The strategic question for African governments is increasingly whether such cross-border partnerships can also be used to build local processing, technical skills, infrastructure and industrial capacity.

France and Japan add another geopolitical layer

The downstream destination for Lindian's heavy rare earth products adds another dimension to the project.

Carester's Caremag facility at Lacq, France, has secured €216 million of funding, comprising €106 million of French government support and up to €110 million from Japanese investors through the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security and Iwatani Corporation. Caremag is targeting operations from 2027 and is designed to recycle permanent magnets and process mining concentrates.

At full production, it is targeting approximately 600 t/y of dysprosium and terbium oxides, representing around 15% of global production, together with approximately 800 t/y of NdPr oxides.

The involvement of both France and Japan is significant.

Both countries have strong strategic interests in diversifying critical-mineral supply chains and securing access to materials needed by advanced manufacturing industries. For Lindian, the Caremag relationship therefore potentially provides more than an offtake market. It creates a link between an African mineral resource and a Western-aligned downstream supply chain supported by strategic government investment from France and Japan.

Heavy rare earths raise the stakes

The focus on dysprosium and terbium is particularly important.

Both elements are used in high-performance permanent magnets, which are essential for applications including electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics and other advanced technologies. Their strategic importance has increased as governments focus on securing the materials required for electrification, defence, advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies.

Lindian's agreement provides Carester with access to SEGH carbonate containing dysprosium, terbium and other heavy rare earths from Kazakhstan feedstocks. The company says pricing will be linked to realised prices for dysprosium, terbium and other economically extracted elements, with applicable government price-floor support also incorporated where relevant.

This creates exposure to some of the highest-value segments of the rare earth market.

From African mine to global value chain

Lindian Executive Chairman Robert Martin said the Carester agreement was designed to capture more value from the company's rare earth production.

“Carester brings both world-class separation expertise and a long-term route to market for our heavy rare earth production.”

Martin said Caremag's €216 million French and Japanese backing demonstrated the strategic importance of the supply chain being developed. Lindian expects Stage 1 of Kangankunde to be commissioned in November 2026, while SARECO in Kazakhstan is undergoing preventative maintenance ahead of planned full commissioning in October.

A DFS for Kangankunde Stage 2 and the proposed oxide separation facility are targeted for completion later this year. If those milestones are achieved, Lindian would have established a rare earth value chain extending from Malawi's mineral resources to Kazakhstan's hydrometallurgical and separation infrastructure and France's downstream refining capacity.

Beyond a single mine

Lindian's ambition extends further.

The proposed 8,000 t/y SX facility is being designed to accept SARECO product liquor solution as well as compatible MREC feedstock from third parties. The company is also evaluating additional rare earth feed sources within Kazakhstan. That could turn Stepnogorsk into a multi-feed processing hub rather than simply a dedicated facility for Lindian's own material.

Such a model could potentially diversify feedstock, increase utilisation and create additional opportunities as Kazakhstan develops its rare earth industry. It also reflects the broader trend towards processing hubs rather than isolated mining projects as companies attempt to build scale in strategically important minerals.

The bigger question for Africa

The global scramble for rare earths is no longer simply about securing deposits.

It is about who owns the processing technology, who controls refining capacity, who can finance projects, who has access to markets and who captures the value between the mine and the final manufactured product. Lindian's strategy brings those elements together across multiple jurisdictions.

Malawi provides the resource. Kazakhstan provides an industrial processing base. France provides downstream separation and refining. Japan provides strategic capital and supply-chain participation.

The model demonstrates the power of international partnerships - but also raises a question that African mining policymakers are increasingly confronting: how can resource-rich countries ensure that cross-border critical-mineral partnerships translate into more processing, industrial development and value capture on the continent?

As governments compete to secure rare earth supplies for the energy transition, AI, robotics, defence and advanced manufacturing, that question is likely to become just as important as the size of the resource itself.