RareX cheers 500 PER CENT increase to contained REEs at Cummins Range

RareX’s highly anticipated resource upgrade for its Cummins Range project includes one massive surprise, a 500% increase in contained total rare earth oxides that makes it Australia’s second largest undeveloped REE deposit.

Cummins Range now has a resource of 397Mt grading 0.33% TREO and 4.2% phosphate, for contained resources of 1.3Mt TREO and 16.7Mt phosphate, the latter of which represents a 800% increase in contained phosphate compared to the company’s 2021 resource estimate.

This massive upgrade is due to a combination of successful drilling in 2022 and the use of a 2.5% phosphate cut-off rather than a TREO cut-off due to RareX’s (ASX:REE) new understanding of the deposit as a very large REE-rich phosphate system.

Additionally, high-value magnet REEs neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) make up a solid 21% of the contained TREO – about 280,000t of NdPr, while the phosphate has characteristics that are highly favourable for the production of organic phosphate fertiliser as well as for use in lithium iron phosphate batteries.

The high NdPr content translates into an attractive REE basket price of US$33 per kilogram.

Further resource growth is likely in late April when the Phos Dyke resource estimate is released.

“Cummins Range has today been unequivocally confirmed as the second largest undeveloped rare earths deposit in Australia and as a potential long-term source of both rare earths and phosphate for Australia’s critical minerals and agricultural industries,” founding managing director Jeremy Robinson said.

“This is an exceptional result which positions RareX at the forefront of the critical minerals sector in Australia.

“I would like to thank our hard-working geological and project teams for their exceptional efforts over the past few years to get to this point. The future for RareX is looking very exciting.”

An updated Scoping Study is currently underway using the updated resource estimate.

Cummins Range resource

The Cummins Range deposit is centred on two sub-parallel carbonatite dykes with the current resource, which includes a higher confidence Indicated resource of 44Mt at 6.3% phosphate, based entirely on the larger Rare Dyke.

Sitting on top of Rare Dyke is a well-developed weathering profile hosting high grade rare earths, phosphate, scandium, and niobium mineralisation that can extend to a depth of more than 100m.

Phos Dyke, one of the other carbonatite dykes that make up the deposit, is surrounded by large volumes of apatite (a group of phosphate minerals), rich phoscorite with consistent low grade rare earths in the form of monazite.

Additionally, geopolitical strains on global phosphate supply saw prices soar 100% last year, which adds even more value to significantly larger resource available to RareX.

Further growth is likely given that even the addition of Phos Dyke means that the global resource covers just 40% of the 2km by 2km Cummins Range pipe.

The remainder of the pipe has sparse drilling with most holes containing phosphate and rare earths.

This article was developed in collaboration with RareX(ASX:REE), 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.