Heavy Rare Earth expands its Cowalinya rare earths footprint

Heavy Rare Earths is living up to its name with exploration uncovering a large zone of rare earth mineralisation west of its Cowalinya South deposit in WA’s Norseman-Esperance region.

With REE’s likely to remain high on the list of what’s hot in mining, the discovery represents a fantastic start for the company in 2023.

The new zone of mineralisation, which is over 2km wide, was identified by assay results of up to 6m grading 1,862 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO) from a down-hole depth of 20m (AC200), 18m at 710ppm TREO from 22m (AC201) and 10m at 640ppm TREO from 35m (AC198).

Importantly for Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE), the results from its exploration and resource expansion drilling program of 435 holes at Cowalinya included significant quantities of valuable magnet REEs, topping up at a solid 25.8% of the total rare earths intersected within hole AC200.

To top it off, the 11 consecutive holes which defined this zone included eight mineralised intercepts with a grade-thickness that exceeds the average grade-thickness of the mineralised horizon in the Cowalinya deposit.

Adding further interest, the aircore drill program also identified other coherent zones of saprolite-hosted REE mineralisation up to 4.2km from the Cowalinya South deposit.

This includes a 600m wide zone of mineralisation that could represent part of an easterly/south-easterly extension to the Cowalinya South resource.

More to come

Assays are still pending for the remaining 368 drillholes in the program, which could deliver more REE results for the company.

The company has also started preparing mineralised composites from 17 of the holes to add to its geo-metallurgical variability program.

Initial results from this work have already indicated that about 78.5% of the REEs are confined to the target size fraction of -25µm which in turn comprises 37.2% of the bulk saprolite feed mass.

This work also indicated a close correspondence between the distribution of total rare earths and the valuable magnet REEs in the -25µm size fraction.

Heavy Rare Earths also acquired two new granted exploration licences, E63/2144 and E63/2145, from Future Metals Group.

These licences cover 20km2 and are located immediately southwest of and contiguous with its Cowalinya tenement E63/1972.

While no rare earths exploration has been carried out on these licences to date, the company’s drilling has indicated that saprolite-hosted REE mineralisation continues westwards from E63/1972 into E63/2144.

This article was developed in collaboration with Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE), 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.