A successful drilling program has increased total mineralisation area at Point Kidman with TREO hits higher than 1,000ppm over 12km2. Pic via Getty Images.
Mining
Aircore drilling at MTM Critical Metal Limited’s East Laverton rare earths project has confirmed mineralisation at its Point Kidman prospect is far larger than previously thought.
Results show an increase to the extent of shallow clay-hosted rare earth element (REE) mineralisation and that it contains a substantial proportion of valuable heavy, magnet and critical elements.
174 AC drill holes and 6 RC holes were completed in the program, returning significant total rare earth oxide (TREO) grades at intervals up to 29 metres.
High-value Neodymium-Praseodymium(NdPr) – favourably sought after in today’s burgeoning magnets industry – made up an average of 19.5% of TREO, with critical rare earths averaging 21.7% and heavy rare earths 11.4 per cent.
Intersections of note include two 29m hits at 1667 parts per million (ppm) and 2,116ppm TREO respectively, as well as 3,340ppm TREO at 4m and 8,752ppm at 1m.
This takes the total mineralisation area that has intercepts over 1,000ppm TREO to cover more than 12km2.
MTM Critical Metals (ASX:MTM) managing director Lachlan Reynolds said the latest drilling results validate the positive soil geochemical anomalies they had already defined, confirming Point Kidman as a highly prospective area.
“As we had previously seen in aircore drilling, the rare earth elements occur in a very broad, shallow and continuous zone of shallow mineralisation, in some cases from surface,” Reynolds said.
“The presence of thick zones of higher-grade mineralisation, up to 30 metres, gives us great encouragement that the Point Kidman prospect area has the potential to contain a resource with a significant proportion of high value NdPr and critical rare earth oxides.”
The whopping increase to mineralisation has made MTM’s decision to undertake preliminary metallurgical testwork at Point Kidman a much easier one.
“Our exploration team is keen to extend the soil sampling coverage within our tenements and we fully expect to define further areas for drill testing,” Reynolds said.
“We are also planning to complete preliminary metallurgical test work on the drilling samples to understand the nature and potential processing options for the mineralisation.
“More drilling is also required to home-in on the best parts of the system and our objective is to make a new rare earth deposit discovery.”
MTM is planning to undertake a program of mineralogical characterisation and metallurgical test work to evaluate representative mineralised zones from the recent drilling campaign.
Further soil sampling will be conducted to evaluate the areas to the east and south of the survey area at Point Kidman, with further REE’s expected to be hit.
The company will also consider infill drilling at several high priority areas identified by drilling to date, in an effort to define a more coherent mineral resource at East Laverton.
This story was developed in collaboration with MTM Critical Metals Limited, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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