Halleck Creek Project’s exploration target has more than tripled to an eye-popping 1.01 and 1.27 billion tonnes of rare earth mineralised rocks.

The vastly expanded exploration target from the Aussie company American Rare Earths is another confirmation that Halleck Creek, along with the company’s La Paz project, have potential to be one of the largest rare earths projects in North America.

Globally, very few rare earths resource estimates exceed one billion tonnes of rare earth metal oxide content.

Additionally, many of the largest projects are plagued with radioactive penalty elements such as uranium and thorium, and lack of infrastructure and accessibility, none of which are issues at American Rare Earths (ASX:ARR) Wyoming project.

The update is based on the outstanding assay results from the maiden drill program at American Rare Earths (ASX:ARR) 100% owned 2,459 ha project, which sparked the 328% upgrade of the original Exploration Target of 308 – 385 million tonnes.

Within the more than one billion tonnes of rare earth mineralised rocks are total rare earth oxide (TREO) grades ranging between 2,245 ppm and 2,807 ppm.

Magnetic attraction

Included in the resource estimate is 692,000 to 865,000 tonnes of the high value Magnetic Rare Earth Oxides (MREO), including neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) oxides. Nd and Pr which are key elements of the permanent magnets in batteries that power clean energy products such as electric vehicles and offshore wind turbines required for US energy and national security.

ARR is now working towards starting a reverse circulation drilling program to define a significant JORC maiden resource as soon as feasible.

Cashed up for growth

The Sydney based company is ramping up the development work backed by extra cash from its recently completed AU$14m placement from institutional and sophisticated investors. That included major ARR shareholder, long-term and ESG focused fund Fidelity International, tipping into the offering to maintain its 9.9% holding.

A rare asset

Managing Director and CEO Chris Gibbs commented: “The Halleck Creek project is shaping up to become a world class asset. The maiden drill campaign was a resounding success, and the new exploration target is massive.

“Assay results exceeded our expectations with consistent rare earth mineralisation observed throughout the deposit.

“We continue to expand the project footprint and the deposit remains open at depth and laterally. We are looking forward to advancing this project and continue increasing shareholder value.”

As well as further drilling, ARR will continue to finalise the highly encouraging metallurgy test work for both the La Paz and Halleck Creek ore with Wood and Nagrom in WA.

The upgrade from Halleck Creek follows drilling results released in June boosting confidence that there’s significant resource expansion potential at La Paz, where ARR has been targeting 742 – 928 million tonnes (MT) to add to the 170MT resource, which also includes scandium as well as rare earths.

At the same time, ARR’s R&D activities with various US Government funded programs are racing towards the development of a sustainable and secure critical mineral supply chain in the US to reduce its dependence on China.

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with American 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