Rainbow announced the commencement of a drilling programme at its Gakara Project in Burundi with the objective of supporting the mine plan for the currently productive areas of the licence and exploring the significant geological anomalies identified in 2017. Gakara is one of the high grade rare earth element mining projects globally, with an estimated in situ grade of 47-67% Total Rare Earth Oxide ('TREO'), and the only producing rare earths mine in Africa. Drilling contractors have been engaged and the first phase of the drilling programme will continue through First Quarter 2018. It will focus on improving the understanding of current production area at Gasagwe as well as exploring the geophysical anomalies identified by the airborne survey completed in November 2017, plus Kiyenzi, where a large sill-like oval structure potentially 22m thick and 80m x 100m in size was discovered by a ground gravity survey earlier in the year.