Pensana Rare Earth TA (DFC-2024-PENSANARAREEA)

Regions
  • Africa
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Countries
  • Angola
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Specific Location
Longonjo municipality of Huambo Province, Angola; Lobito Corridor
Whenever identified, the area within countries where the impacts of the investment may be experienced. Exact locations of projects may not be identified fully or at all in project documents. Please review updated project documents and community-led assessments.
Financial Institutions
  • US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Approved
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
U
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Borrower
Pensana PLC
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Energy
  • Industry and Trade
  • Mining
  • Technical Cooperation
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Advisory Services
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 3.40 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 6.80 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Corporate Actor Documents
Media Documents
Other Related Projects
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ DFC website

Updated in EWS Sep 16, 2025

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

As stated in the project disclosure document, DFC will provide a pre-investment technical assistance grant of $3,400,000 to Pensana, Plc for feasibility studies, including an updated mineral resource estimate study, metallurgical assessments and for the mining and processing of Rare Earth Elements (REE), as well as feasibility studies for REE refining facilities in Angola, on the Lobito Corridor.

As stated on Pensana PLC's website, the Longonjo rare earths deposit is located adjacent to the Lobito rail Corridor approximately 60 km west of the provincial capital of Huambo in central Angola.

The project currently under development comprises an open pit, concentrator and recovery plants, tailings storage facility (designed to meet the requirements of the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management), process water supply, bulk power supply, mine infrastructure, workshops, offices, accommodation village, recreational facilities, and other associated infrastructure.

The Longonjo operation will extract, concentrate, calcine and chemically refine the free dig material to produce a high-value mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) to be railed 273km to the Atlantic port of Lobito for export.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.
Private Actors Description
A Private Actor is a non-governmental body or entity that is the borrower or client of a development project, which can include corporations, private equity and banks. This describes the private actors and their roles in relation to the project, when private actor information is disclosed or has been further researched.

ASF Yova Mining Holding Ltd., an Australian mining company, holds the majority of Pensana PLC's shares (about 25% according to the information on the company's website as of September 16, 2025). Other relevant shareholders are Vidacos Nominees Limited (~15%), Interactive Brokers LLC (~10%), State Street Nominees Limited (~10%). 

Major banking institutions also appear to hold interests in the project. Among them, Barclays, and HSBC.

Private Actor 1 Private Actor 1 Role Private Actor 1 Sector Relation Private Actor 2 Private Actor 2 Role Private Actor 2 Sector
- - - - Pensana PLC Client Mining

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

No project contacts provided at the time of disclosure.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Unlike many other development finance institutions, DFC does not currently have an access to information policy.

Under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DFC is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Agency records. However, DFC may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information and may charge fees in responding to requests. DFC has a designated FOIA officer who is trained in how to respond to requests and implement the law. You can learn more about filing a FOIA request at: https://www.dfc.gov/foia

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION (DFC)

The Office of Accountability is an independent office that addresses complaints about environmental or social issues related to DFC-supported projects. The office provides communities an opportunity to have concerns independently reviewed and addressed. If you submit a complaint to the Office of Accountability, it may assist you by either seeking to address your problems by facilitating a problem solving dialogue between you and those implementing the project and/or investigating whether the DFC complied with its policies to prevent environmental, social, human rights, and labor harms.

You can find more information about the Office of Accountability at: https://www.dfc.gov/who-we-are/office-accountability

How it works

How it works