American Rare Earths on road to growing Halleck Creek resource

American Rare Earths is planning to upgrade the 1.43 billion tonne JORC Resource at Halleck Creek after completing development drilling at what is potentially the largest strategic rare earths project in the US.

Assay results are expected next month from the 2,389m 23-hole program that identified several high-grade zones, with grades of up to 8,875ppm observed via XRF.

All drillholes confirmed enriched rare earth mineralisation and, as with previous drilling at American Rare Earths (ASX:ARR) flagship project, minimal levels of radioactive penalty elements uranium and thorium were observed.

The latest positive news follows last month’s announcement that enriched mineralisation was found to a depth of at least 300m. That’s an increase of 178% over previous drilling, which indicates the resource may be much larger than previously expected.

Even after this latest program only 25% of the deposit has been drilled, and it remains open at depth and width.

Within the Maiden JORC Resource of 1.43 billion tonnes is an estimated 4.73 million tonnes of Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO). About 24% of that is high value magnet rare earth elements neodymium and praseodymium, or NdPr, used in clean energy technology, modern electronics and national security hardware.

As ARR works towards releasing a Preliminary Economic Analysis (PEA) for Halleck Creek, two tonnes of core material from the program are being shipped to laboratories to assess metallurgical characteristics.

The results from this round of tests will be used to further refine the flowsheet design and cost estimates for the upcoming PEA, building upon the recently announced highly encouraging metallurgical test results. Those results indicated that Halleck Creek ore can be effectively processed using conventional technologies, which means lower initial capital expenditure and reduced ongoing operating costs.

Also related to the PEA was the program’s focus on confirming high-grade mineable areas to define a significant volume of measured and indicated resources, which is necessary for resource reporting.

More broadly, it will also provide greater confidence as ARR refines its future strategy at Halleck Creek.

CEO Donald Swartz said: “This drilling campaign was an important initial step on our development path.
“Our next steps are to ship the core material we have extracted to laboratories. Concentrate will be prepared, then dispatched to several downstream testing facilities to continue de-risking the project utilising our low-cost processing technology.”

Team effort

Swartz also thanked the company’s geologists and technical staff for helping to ensure the program was completed on schedule and within budget.

The team has also been busy at the highly prospective new Beaver Creek Project, which is also in Wyoming and offers potential synergies with Halleck Creek. In September Beaver Creek yielded high-grade assay results as ARR boosted its land holding in the area by 85%.