• Rare earths are vital due to the many climate-centric applications requiring permanent magnets
  • Demand is expected to surge more than 40% over the next two decades as investment in the sector heats up
  • Here are 10 of the cheapest rare earth stocks if you’re looking to catch a ride

 

All critical minerals are essential to key technologies such as high-tech electronics and defence which underpin a nation’s prosperity and security, however rare earth elements (REEs) are particularly vital due to the many climate-centric applications requiring permanent magnets.

Neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium make up the ‘magnet rare earths’ needed in the manufacture of electric vehicle motors and wind turbines.

Over the next two decades, the International Energy Agency says demand for rare earths will surge more than 40% with clean technologies becoming the fastest-growing market as countries around the world work towards meeting their 2030 and 2050 net-zero pledges.

As is the case with most critical minerals, China dominates around 85% to 90% of global supply and while other countries mine REEs, most of the processing still takes place in China.

But this is beginning to change.

Governments like Australia are starting to wake up to the importance of developing a local supply chain as demonstrated by ScoMo and Co’s $1.2b investment to help Iluka Resources build a new rare earths refinery in Western Australia.

Head honchos like Twiggy Forrest are also catching on, with his private company Wyloo Metals lending $150m to Hastings Technology Metals, paving the way for the aspiring rare earths producer to become a more vertically integrated company.

Hastings will use the proceeds to fund a 22% stake in TSX-listed Neo Performance Materials, owner of the only operating commercial rare earths separation facility in Europe.

As an essential enabler of the energy transition, rare earths elements will remain a hot commodity for many years to come and although prices reached their highest point in a decade back in February, experts say they remain in a really good space compared to five years ago – further incentivising new investment.

Here are 10 of the cheapest rare earths stocks if you’re looking to catch a ride, 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 – 10 cheap ASX rare earths stocks

 

RESOURCE BASE (ASX: RBX)

Market cap: ~$5.7m

Resource Base is a metals explorer targeting clay hosted REE and VHMs in Victoria and South Australia.

The company submitted three exploration licence applications at the Mitre Hill Project totalling 1,021km2 in Victoria for tenements it considers to be prospective for clay hosted Rare Earths (REE) and would grow its overall footprint to 7,022km2.

Mitre Hill Project holds the largest land position in the southern margin of the Murray Basin an emerging globally significant clay hosted Rare Earths precinct.

 

TERRAIN MINERALS (ASX:TMX) 

Market cap: ~$6m

At the end of May Terrain discovered clay-type rare earths over large areas within its 320km2 tenement area at the Lort River Project in southern Esperance, Western Australia.

These multiple ‘walk-up’ drill targets demonstrated a high percentage of valuable magnet rare earths elements of up 35% of the total grade, as well as high-grade scandium.

Terrain intends to advance exploration at Lort River, targeting the underlying clay horizon below the shallow soil anomaly.

Other players in the region include Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK) with its Cascade Project and OD6 Metals’ (ASX:OD6) Grass Patch and Splinter Rock rare earths projects.

The tenure also covers the Kateup Creek, Helms, Bishops Hat and Lauriana Shear Zones and is prospective for gold and base metals, in addition to the shallow, high-grade, high value rare earths mineralisation already identified.

 

MT MONGER RESOURES (ASX:MTM)

Market cap: ~$6.1m

Mt Monger has a portfolio of four projects with its East Laverton and Ravensthorpe holding exposure to REE mineralisation.

The Ravensthorpe project is located within the Albany-Fraser Orogen, an emerging province-scale ionic absorption clay-hosted rare earths element opportunity where Meeka (ASX:MEK), Mount Ridley Mines (ASX:MRD), and OD6 Metals (ASX:OD6) have recently taken up landholdings.

At Laverton recent shallow, broad rare earths element mineralisation within saprolitic clays have been identified by aircore drilling with significant TREO intersected.

Highlights include 15m at 1,461ppm TREO from 21m and 5m at 1,790ppm TREO from 27m – planning and permitting is currently underway to undertake further drilling.

 

AUSMON RESOURCES (ASX:AOA)

Market cap: ~$7.2m

Ausmon is on the hunt for rare earths southeast of Adelaide on the Limestone Coast in South Australia where it has recently been granted four new exploration licences covering 2,775km.

Australian Rare Earth (ASX:AR3) is already exploring over a large area in the region and announced a 104% increase in its JORC inferred mineral resource to 81.4 Mt at 785 ppm TREO (Total Rare Earth Oxides) at their Koppamurra project in July.

Ausmon has developed an exploration strategy for selected sites within the tenements to collect where available, bulk samples to identify any clay fraction that can be sieved via shallow auger drilling traverses along the road verges.

This work is planned to begin in this September quarter and if areas are identified with elevated REE results, close spaced aircore drilling will be conducted with the aim being to define a resource that if successful, may be later developed for commercial extraction.

 

OSMOND RESOURCES (ASX:OSM)

Market cap: ~$9.6m

Osmond listed on the ASX back in April after raising $5 million.

A soil sampling program has taken off at the Sandford Project in western Victoria with the purpose of identifying areas of possible clay-hosted REE mineralisation.

The program is set to take about two weeks with assays anticipated another six weeks later.

 

KILLI RESOURCES (ASX:KLI)

Market cap: ~$9.6m

Aircore and reverse circulation drilling targeting potential hydrothermal rare earths mineralisation has just wrapped up at the West Tanami Project, 200km south of Hall’s Creek in Western Australia, where no previous exploration has been undertaken.

The company says the first pass drill lines have returned favourable geology consistent with the style of mineralisation being targeted and look forward to seeing what the assays yield.

Aircore drilling focussed on two REE targets in the north, which have been identified from magnetics and radiometric data, and where the drilling intercepted favourable geology, RC holes were completed to a greater depth to provide enough sample for further analysis work.

All samples from the program have been collected and dispatched to the laboratory in Perth, with results expected within the next two months.

 

REACH RESOURCES (ASX:RR1) 

Market cap: ~$11.4m

In March Reach Resources invested $1.8m into REEgenerate, an Australian private company and owner of the Coconut Club REE exploration project in Quebec, Canada who recently acquired REEcycle Inc, a US based Rare Earths Element (REE) separation and technology company focussed on recovering REE from high powered permanent NdFeB magnets.

REEcycle has developed a process that has shown at pilot scale the ability to reclaim 15 of the 17 rare earths elements in discarded permanent NdFeB magnets, with a recovery efficiency in excess of 99%.

The patented process developed at the University of Houston uses a proprietary solvent to safely and efficiently extract REEs from scrap with low temperatures, low pressures, and minimal energy needs and waste.

In pilot testing, REEcycle’s technology has demonstrated an ability to safely extract 15 of the 17 rare earths elements found in discarded permanent magnets in electronic waste from its pilot plant in Houston, Texas.

 

VICTORY GOLDFIELDS (ASX:1VG)

Market cap: ~$12.2m

Victory Goldfields has discovered an alkaline intrusive complex at its bullseye magnetic anomaly at North Stanmore, with nickel and rare earths elements (REE) bearing minerals.

Initial assays include up to 1022ppm nickel, up to 127ppm cobalt and up to 244ppm copper, which have been confirmed by petrology and mineral chemistry to be associated with pentlandite (nickel-iron sulphide).

Discovering an alkaline intrusion is a big deal as these are the engine rooms for rare earths elements and critical metals.

The company has also executed a binding agreement for the strategic tenement adjoining this new discovery.

 

MEGADO MINERALS (ASX:MEG)

Market cap: ~$13.7m

Megado’s name was changed from Megado Gold during the quarter to reflect the company’s widening exploration mandate.

The company is in the process of generating new critical mineral project ideas and investigating further opportunities to add to its growing portfolio – in June it acquired 100% of the issued share capital of Felix Strategic Minerals in order to acquire the rights, title and interest in the North Fork Rare Earth Project in Idaho.

North Fork contains multiple carbonatite-hosted, high-grade, REE mineralised veins that have been observed, historically, at surface across several prospects over 10km along strike.

Carbonatite veins, outcropping at surface from the Silver King prospect, have historically yielded Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) of up to at 10.3% and Critical Rare Earth Oxides (CREO) up to 1.2% obtained via assays of channel samples.

 

WHITE CLIFF MINERALS (ASX:WCN)

Market cap: ~$14.3m

Lithium’s hot, so are rare earths, cobalt, nickel… gold ain’t too bad either. White Cliff has exposure to them ALL.

This critical mineral explorer is on the ground at the early-stage Yinnetharra rare earths and lithium project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region, where exploration at the site previously focused on uranium.

Earlier this month, a new batch of “expedited” rock chip samples returned results up to 780ppm TREO rare earths.

Around 13 samples were expedited as proof of concept that REEs were present within the project area, with the remaining 115 samples due shortly.

 

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