SGQ secures A$60M for rare earths and niobium project - Hancock follows money with $20M in the raise

Our rare earths and niobium Investment St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) just raised $60M at 10c per share for its project in Brazil.

And one of SGQ’s major shareholders - Gina Rineharts Hancock came in for another $20M in the raise.

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Hancock committed A$20M, a third of the entire raise which takes its interest in SGQ to ~10.5% once the placement completes, up from just over 6% back in November from the prior raise (source).

Today’s news comes a few days ago after Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting took a stake reported at more than ~A$1.4 billion (US$1BN) in Elon Musk's SpaceX.

This is Hancock’s largest ever investment outside iron ore as part of the biggest IPO on record (SpaceX is currently valued at A$3.76TN, well up from the IPO).

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Hancock has openly flagged the potential for "mutually beneficial arrangements" between SpaceX and its critical minerals investments, as demand grows for the materials behind advanced technology.

SGQ is one of those rare earths holdings and it's nice to see the biggest individual shareholder of MP Materials and a major holder of Lynas (the two biggest operating rare earth miners in the west) now adding to her position in SGQ…

SGQ's 100%-owned Araxá project in Brazil is already the largest and highest-grade carbonatite-hosted rare earth deposit in South America.

It holds 70.91Mt at 4.06% total rare earth oxide (TREO) and 0.62% niobium - shallow, and starting from surface.

That's the same hard-rock carbonatite geology as the two biggest rare earth producers we mentioned earlier - ~US$14BN MP Materials and ~A$18BN Lynas.

SGQ trades at a fraction of those two, capped at around A$456M fully diluted post raise.

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What the money raise will be put toward

The A$60M will accelerate development of Araxá allowing SGQ to push the project through feasibility study work and toward a final investment decision.

SGQ is currently running four drill rigs 24/7 ahead of a second resource upgrade targeted for the September quarter, with $6BN Worley leading the engineering, feasibility and mine planning.

It's also advancing four downstream processing partnerships (still at testwork/MoU stage) and building a large-scale pilot plant in Brazil to produce sample niobium and rare earth products for potential offtake partners.

SGQ announced positive early met results last week which we covered, this showed it is able to separate the iron, rare earths and niobium into separate streams:

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What’s next for SGQ?

🔄 Drill results from expansion drilling

SGQ has 4 rigs turning 24/7 at its project right now.

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The last update out of SGQ said that ~44 expansion holes had been completed that AREN’T in the current resource estimate.

We are hoping the current drill programs lead to another resource upgrade on the project later this year.

(SGQ has mentioned it is targeting another upgrade in Q3).

🔄Met testing and pilot plant

There is also ongoing met testing which we saw the initial results of today

This detailed a one month pilot plant study on niobium flotation which is expected in July and then in late Q4 2026 SGQ's own large scale pilot plant (under construction at CEFET-MG in Araxá) is scheduled to be operating

🔄 Downstream processing updates - now on FOUR fronts

Here are the processing pathways we are tracking with four different companies across four different jurisdictions.

For rare earths processing:

• 🔄 With REAlloys (US) - Testing SGQ's rare earth product to see IF it meets specifications for US military-grade permanent magnets
• 🔄 Nanum Nanotecnologia (Brazil) - Cerium/lanthanum separation to upgrade NdPr concentration by removing lower-value rare earths early in the processing cycle
• 🔄 Tecnicas Reunidas (Europe) - Applying proprietary technology to SGQ's ore samples to design an optimal chemical flowsheet

And most recently - for the niobium:

• 🔄 With Boston Metal (US/Brazil) - testing processing tech on SGQ’s niobium resource.

We also note SGV:

• Has signed an agreement for a joint pilot plant trial (building on a prior 9-month trial that successfully produced rare earth product at over 99% purity with 86% recoveries)
• Is participating in the MAGBRAS Initiative - a program with major automakers like Stellantis working toward building Brazil's first permanent magnet-making facility

Beyond all of that, we are also looking out for the following (specifically that economic study):

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