Harena Issues 66.7 Million Performance Shares After Ampasindava Permit Milestone

Harena Rare Earths has formalised the exploitation permit for its Ampasindava rare-earth project in Madagascar, a regulatory milestone that triggered the issue of 66.7 million new performance shares but leaves environmental approvals as the immediate gate to construction of the planned pilot phase.12

The company said the permit validates social, environmental, technical and financial commitments made to Madagascar’s Ministry of Mines in connection with Ampasindava. Harena can now move forward with an environmental and social impact assessment and associated public consultations under Madagascar’s MECIE environmental framework, with the longer-term aim of developing a Phase 1 extraction plant and processing facility.1

The distinction matters for the project timetable. Harena said it is now focused on obtaining an environmental permit and completing environmental and social management plans, which are prerequisites to starting infrastructure construction for the pilot phase. The formalised exploitation permit therefore provides the regulatory setting for the next development work; it is not, on the information released, final environmental clearance to begin building.12

The permit milestone also activated an equity consequence. Harena issued 66.7 million new performance shares with a nominal value of 0.5 pence each, with admission expected on October 14, according to an Alliance News report carried by Morningstar.2 The source identifies the issuance as following permit formalisation, making the regulatory milestone relevant not only to the project’s permitting path but also to the company’s share count.

Harena had previously announced the signing of the Cahier des Charges Minières, or mining terms and conditions, on August 11. The October development formalises the exploitation permit after that earlier step. The company describes the current permit as a major advance toward local development and processing at Ampasindava, but it has expressly placed environmental permitting and management planning ahead of pilot construction.1

The proposed pilot is intended to bridge the gap between permitting and a decision on full-scale development. Harena says the phase is expected to be supported by a US$4.84 million project development funding agreement with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. It is planned to include a demonstration plant and an initial commercial operation designed to test technical, operating, economic, environmental and social parameters.1

Those results are intended to inform a definitive feasibility study for a full-scale Ampasindava development. Harena has said it is targeting production in 2028, but that remains a target rather than current output or an approved construction programme.2 Progress toward that target now depends materially on completing the environmental assessment, public consultation process, environmental permit and environmental and social management plans.

For investors and local stakeholders, the sequence establishes a clearer division between rights and readiness. The exploitation permit gives Harena a formalised mining framework and has satisfied the condition attached to a substantial performance-share issuance. Yet the company’s own description of its next steps means the project has not crossed the environmental threshold for pilot infrastructure works.12

The next disclosures to watch are therefore not simply further statements of permit status, but concrete outcomes from the environmental process: progress on the impact assessment and consultations, completion of the required management plans, and receipt of the environmental permit. Only then would the stated prerequisite to pilot construction be met. The eventual pilot’s operating and technical results would in turn shape the definitive feasibility study on which Harena plans to base the full-scale development pathway.12