• China is threatening an export ban on rare earth element magnet production and refining technology
  • At the same time, demand for rare earths is set to surge three to seven times above current levels by 2040
  • Here are 12 cheap Aussie rare earth stocks under a $25m market cap 

 

The Middle Kingdom’s stranglehold over the rare earths market has been thrust into the spotlight once again, with reports suggesting China is threatening an export ban on rare earth element (REE) magnet production and process/refining technology in response to the US targeting its chip-making industry.

With demand for REEs set to surge three to seven times above current levels by 2040, experts say the reports – which are based on draft amendments to China’s list of restricted technology that could come into force this year – place increased pressure on Western economies already scrambling to shore up supply and develop processing capabilities.

China’s monopolistic hold over the REE market is nothing new but it goes to show the battlefield for these elements is heating up as countries race to secure supply of raw materials vital for decarbonisation and electrification.

Rare earth elements are a group of 17 metallic elements including praseodymium, terbium, yttrium, and neodymium, used in the production of many modern technologies such as wind turbines and electric vehicle motors.

Although prices for rare earths (NdPr oxide) have nosedived since late year after breaking records at the start of 2022, in the long term experts believe the sector will remain buoyant as Europe and the United States continue to pour money into the clean energy transition.

Below, Stockhead has pulled out a few rare earth explorers under a $25m market cap with plenty of upside because as legendary investor Rick Rule says, “it’s much easier to get a 10,000 bagger if you start with a sub $2m market cap, than if you start with a $200m market cap”. 

 

Bargain Barrel – cheap ASX rare earth stocks with a sub $25m market cap

(Note: All market cap information pulled from the ASX and correct as of April 25.) 

 

MT MALCOLM (ASX:M2M) 
Market cap: $2.96m

Mt Malcolm recently added REE to the suite of commodities present at its flagship project by the same name in Western Australia following reconnaissance and historical database examination.

This process identified enriched and anomalous light REE responses within at least seven tenements including Mt Stewart, Sunday-Picnic, Malcom Dam and the Malcolm Mining Centre.

While not a replacement for laboratory analysis, portable XRF has returned results such as 0.38% cerium, 0.21% lanthanum, 0.15% neodymium and 0.05% praseodymium in a region with REE exploration and production with the world-class Mt Weld project near Laverton to the east and the Redlings and Mt Stirling prospects to the west.

 

LANTHANEIN RESOURCES (ASX:LNR)
Market cap: $20.18m

It’s harsh, vast country out in WA’s Gascoyne region but key ASX players are proving the widely under-explored district could become a game-changing rare earths province.

Home to the rare earth big guns like Hasting Technology Metals (ASX:HAS), Dreadnought Resources (ASX:DRE), Kingfisher Mining (ASX:KFM) and Voltaic Strategic Resources (ASX:VSR), WA’s Gascoyne region more than 1,000km from Perth has been the birthplace of major discoveries in recent times.

Why does all this matter?

Mining minnow Lanthanein Resources, previously Frontier Resources, is a mere 2km from Hasting’s Yangibana and only 15km from Dreadnought’s fence line.

Like Yangibana and Yin, the source of rare earths at LNR’s Lyon and Edmund project areas are from Gifford Creek ferrocarbonatities, which have been intruded along the Bald Hill lineament.

New ironstone trends, which may host REE mineralisation, has recently been discovered at Lyons in the most western area of the project with rock samples sent to ALS Laboratories for priority analysis.

Results are expected in May.

 

NARRYER METALS (ASX:NYM)
Market cap: $5.46m

Narryer Metals recently picked up a new REE project in Western Australia’s Great Southern region where historical drilling has identified granodiorite with anomalous REE, with best assays returning 114m at 1127ppm TREO (Total Rare Earth Oxide) and 280ppm MREO (Magnet Rare Earth Oxide) from 4m depth and 80m at 973ppm TREO, 237ppm MREO.

The Cockerup tenements cover a large holding of 568km2 and targets weathered granites and gneisses, for ionic clay adsorption (ICA) rare earth element (REE) mineralisation.

The Great Southern region has become a focus for rare earth exploration with several other juniors including Splinter (ASX:OD6), Mt Ridley (ASX:MRM) and Circle Valley (ASX:MEK) hunting for clay-hosted REE opportunities in the area.

Rock Gully, Narryer’s other REE project also in the Great Southern region, holds the potential for a REE hosted carbonatite complex, which have a higher exploration success rate in REE, Nb, and other commodities.

 

MOHO RESOURCES (ASX:MOH)
Market cap: $5.60m

Moho Resources re-rated on a clay hosted rare earths acquisition, discovery, and solid set of drill results last week at the Peak Charles project in southern WA.

The project is next door to ground held by OD6 Metals (ASX:OD6), which announced bonanza grades up to 6605ppm “with extensive clay thickness of between 20 and 80m” at the Splinter Rock project earlier this week.

“Moho believes the identified target zone of 15 x 12km thus far, with further room for growth across the tenement package, puts the company in a positive position in the REE market in Australia,” MD Ralph Winter says.

Follow up drilling is now being planned, with this maiden 81-hole campaign restricted to road reserves and existing tracks due to limited land access.

 

KINGFISHER MINING (ASX:KFM)
Market cap: $13.16m

Kingfisher’s belief that it has a ‘belt-scale’ rare earths play on its hands received a shot in the arm in early February after drilling confirmed the discovery of continuous, high-grade rare earths at the MW2 target in Western Australia’s Gascoyne mineral field.

Notable results from the drill program at the time included 5m grading 2.63% total rare earth oxides (TREO) and 0.54% neodymium and praseodymium – both valuable magnet REEs – from a down-hole depth of 124m (MWRC067) and 4m at 3.24% TREO and 0.54% Nd2O3 + Pr6O11 from 46m (MWRC035).

There is growing evidence to suggest the company’s 54km Chalba corridor is the next significant REE target in the area, with intersections comparable to those from the Bald Hill deposit which is part of Hastings’ Yangibana project.

Kingfisher continues to extend the extent of rare earths mineralisation at the MW2 target, confirming indications that the mineralisation forms part of a larger carbonatite system.

 

 

KRAKATOA RESOURCES (ASX:KTA)
Market cap: $10.68m

Krakatoa is focusing its exploration efforts on expanding the current REE resource at the Mt Clere project northwest of Meekatharra, Western Australia with infill and extensional drilling around the Tower deposit.

Since 2021, extensive work completed at the project has culminated in a maiden resource estimate of 101Mt at 840ppm TREO at the Tower deposit, with 80% of the company’s landholding remaining under-explored.

Exploration programs will kick off this month with plans to make new hard rock and clay hosted rare earth discoveries as well as following up on a number of exciting basement sulphide targets and advanced prospects.

 

VICTORY METALS (ASX:VTM)

Market cap: $13.54m

Besides confirming excellent grades of total rare earth element oxides (TREO), the latest assays from diamond drilling at Victory Metals’ North Stanmore project also show the possible presence of nickel-cobalt and platinum-palladium.

Adding further interest, the infill reverse circulation program across VTM’s North Stanmore REE project near Cue, Western Australia, has confirmed that valuable heavy rare earths make up to 74% of the REE mineralisation.

Designed for the initial mineral resource estimate scheduled for release in June, the program has pulled up results with an average TREO of 1010ppm and significant rare earth element oxide concentrations totalling 35%.

In conjunction, Victory Metals has engaged Core Metallurgy in Brisbane to carry out a metallurgical test work program with preliminary results expected at the end of April.

 

PETRATHERM (ASX:PTR)
Market cap: $18.65m

South Australian rare earths explorer, Petratherm, received promising drilling results from Meteor (part of its Comet project) in February which defined a ‘continuous blanket’ of high-grade, +1000ppm REE mineralisation starting from shallow depths of 3–6m.

Highlights include 24m at 1,594ppm TREO, 34ppm Sc2O3 from 6m, inc. 6m at 2,495ppm TREO and 42ppm Sc2O3.

Mineralisation remains open, the company says, and there is also “significant potential for additional discoveries”.

PTR has now started all important metallurgical trials to test whether it can build an operation using a using simple heap leach extraction process.

 

DY6 Metals – listing on the ASX in June
Market cap post IPO: between $9 – 11.1m

DY6 Metals has two rare earth projects in southern Malawi – a region which has garnered significant attention from geologists, investors, and ASX companies looking to play a part in diversifying the world’s REE mineral supply.

The Southern Malawi alkaline province, where DY6 Metals’ flagship Machinga project is located, is known to host a range of light and heavy rare earth (HRE) projects.

But unlike the rest, Machinga has a very high ratio of heavy rare earth (HRE) TREO results, with peak values of up to 39% in conjunction with high ratios of DY2O3 with an average of 3.3%.

The company is hoping to get on the ground soon after listing to kick off a ~5000m RC and diamond drilling campaign to follow up targets drilled by prior owner, Globe Metals and Mining (ASX:GBE), in 2011/2012.

 

Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE)
Market cap: $9.89m

HRE continues to hit thick, high-grade clay REEs at the 28Mt Cowalinya project, also in the Great Southern region of WA, with intersections returning up to 4839ppm TREO and standout results including 8m at 3057ppm TREO from 27m.

Around 159 mineralised intercepts have been logged in the newly discovered 13sqkm Western Zone, which has the potential “to host a material increase in rare earths resources”, the company says.

Once the assays for the remaining 36 holes are received, HRE will begin to update the project’s inventory which currently holds a JORC Inferred resource of 28Mt at 625ppm TREO and a desirable rare earth composition where 25% are the valuable magnet rare earths and 23% the strategic heavy rare earths.

There are also assays outstanding for 41 exploration holes drilled ~15km from the Western Zone.

These will be excluded from the updated resource estimate, “but may present new rare earth target areas for subsequent definition drilling”.

 

Voltaic Strategic Resources (ASX:VSR)
Market cap: $9.26m

Voltaic has initiated sighter metallurgical test work to characterise the REEs identified within clays at its Paddy’s Well Project, in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region, an emerging critical minerals hotspot.

The company has identified several both clay-hosted and primary hard rock REE targets at Paddys Well and this upcoming metallurgical work represents the next step in making an informed decision on whether to continue targeting clay-hosted REEs or to shift focus solely to hard rock.

This work involves undertaking industry-standard leach tests under different reagent schemes to identify the REE distribution by particle size, characterise the REEs by host phase (ion exchange, colloidal, or mineral), determine the REE recoveries, and outline a preliminary process flowsheet if favourable results are obtained.

 

PARABELLUM RESOURCES (ASX:PBL)

Market cap: $18.8m

Parabellum recently defined a maiden rare earth element resource at its Khotgor project in Mongolia ahead of an upcoming Scoping Study which holds 2.2Mt of total rare earth oxides (TREO).

Equally encouraging, the company’s endowment of valuable magnet REEs neodymium and praseodymium makes up 20% of the TREOs, demonstrating the scale, grade and potential of Khotgor at such an early stage.

Parabellum has a 30% interest in Temarise Limited (UK), which holds the exclusive option to acquire 80% of Khotgor, which is located in the South Gobi province of Mongolia about 65km north of Dalanzadgad and about 530km south-southwest of Ulaanbaatar.

Several phases of exploration work including targeted ground-based geophysical surveys and drilling of 59 diamond drill holes were carried out at Khotgor between 2005 and 2012, which resulted in the estimation of a mineral resource prepared to the older JORC 2004 standard.

Temarise completed an exploration program in 2022 as part of a project evaluation and Mineral Resource reassessment, which has led to the current JORC 2012 resource.

Over the next 12 months, Parabellum will continue to develop the resource database at Khotgor and future mine planning will focus on the higher-grade areas of the resource above the 1.5% REO cut-off.

 

KILLI RESOURCES (ASX:KLI)

Market cap: $3.64m

Killi recently identified the potential for a heavy rare earth system within the West Tanami project in early February after a broad soil program was carried out across regional trends, potentially prospective for hydrothermal rare earth element systems.

The soil results returned greater than 3x background yttrium values at three separate locations, with yttrium being one of the heavy rare earth elements, which is always associated and found in combination with rare earth minerals.

KLI CEO Kathryn Cutler says the “fantastic” first pass yttrium results at the Fox prospect indicated the company is in the right region and plans are now underway to drill test the REE target in the coming field season.

 

 

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Mt Malcolm Mines, Lanthanein Resources, Moho Resources, Victory Metals, DY6 Metals, Heavy Rare Earths, Voltaic Strategic Resources and Parabellum Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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