• HRE flags an Exploration Target of 280-1,390 Mt at 330-1,330 ppm TREO at Cowalinya
  • The target follows a recent 468% resource upgrade to 159 Mt at 870 ppm TREO
  • Scale of in-ground inventory indicates potential long-life development

 

Heavy Rare Earths has announced a sizeable Exploration Target at its Cowalinya clay hosted rare earths project in WA of 280-1,390 Mt at 330-1,330 ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO).

That’s on top of the project’s recently upgraded resource of 159 Mt at 870 ppm TREO, a 468% jump from the previous resource.

The resource has a desirable rare earth composition with 28% containing the highly sought after valuable magnet rare earths and 23% the strategic heavy rare earths.

These magnet rare earths – in particular neodymium and praseodymium – are in high demand due to their use in electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as a myriad of other critical technologies used in modern society.

“Taken together with our recently announced 159 million tonnes of Inferred Resources, today’s result of up to 1.4 billion tonnes in an Exploration Target at Cowalinya delivers a clear statement on the potential of our land holdings to host sufficient rare earths to underpin a long-life development,” Heavy Rare Earths’ (ASX:HRE) executive director Richard Brescianini said.

Plus, the resources and Exploration Target collectively only occupy about 45% of the company’s total land position at Cowalinya – meaning there could be even more room to grow.

 

Resource upgrade opportunities

HRE considers the Exploration Target to be conservative and presents opportunities for straightforward conversion to additional resources via modest programs of shallow drilling.

Surrounding the existing resource, an Exploration Target of 40-80 Mt at 650-1330 ppm TREO (average 990 ppm TREO) has been estimated.

A limited program of shallow aircore drilling is being designed to capture this upgrade opportunity.

Within the ‘far field’ Exploration Target areas, a small number of limited-length parallel lines of shallow aircore drilling are planned to follow up on intercepts released in May.

Those earlier intercepts included:

  • 7m at 1303 ppm TREO from 7m (AC473);
  • 10m at 1286 ppm TREO from 16 m (AC471); and
  • 30m at 923 ppm TREO from 11 m (AC468).

 

Heavy Rare Earths ASX HRE
Cowalinya mineral resources and exploration target. Source: HRE.

 

Metallurgical work ongoing

In the meantime, a downstream metallurgical program is also in progress to produce mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) product samples for customer engagement.

An MREC product represents the first entry point by clay-hosted projects into the rare earth supply chain.

“Of course, further drilling is necessary to convert any part of the exploration target to mineral resources, but its execution must not run ahead of one of our key downstream metallurgical work programs, the production and customer qualification of a mixed rare earth carbonate product, scheduled for completion by the end of this year,” Brescianini also said.

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Heavy Rare Earths, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Read MoreRare Earths

Featured Companies

You might be interested in