Special Report: 2020 is expected to be a busy year for Red Mountain, which is planning to carry out drilling and deliver resources for its Mt Mansbridge and Mt Kokeby projects.

Red Mountain Mining (ASX:RMX) has big plans for 2020 that will follow up on the 2019 acquisitions of a rare earths project and a kaolin project with potential for early cashflow.

In August, the company entered into a lucrative deal to buy the Mt Mansbridge heavy rare earths exploration project in the highly prospective Tanami region of Western Australia, just 40km from Northern Minerals’ (ASX:NTU) Browns Range processing facility.

This was followed by the acquisition of the previously producing Mt Kokeby kaolin project about 99km southeast of Perth in October.

Soil sampling at Mt Mansbridge has already shown similarities to Browns Range.

Notably, the Killi Killi prospect within the project has known occurrences of xenotime, which hosts dysprosium — a highly strategic mineral that is vital for the electric vehicle industry as well as uses in lasers, wind turbines, nuclear reactors and other military applications.

Meanwhile, test work of Mt Kokeby ore in 2019 has highlighted its DSO potential, indicating that recoveries of more than 96 per cent for a 37 per cent alumina product are possible.

DSO refers to “direct shipping ore” – namely, minerals that require only minimal processing such as crushing before they are exported, which keeps costs low.

Director Jeremy King told Stockhead the acquisitions met the company’s goal at this time last year of introducing new quality assets to the business.

2020 plans

Red Mountain plans to reprocess existing data at Mt Mansbridge to identify and delineate the best targets across the project in January 2020.

This is aimed at facilitating the start of drilling at the end of the first quarter. Results are expected in the second quarter of 2020.

Over at Mt Kokeby, the company plans to start due diligence drilling in January with results available in February.

Red Mountain is also expecting to receive the results of test work into the amenability of Mt Kokeby ore for beneficiation into high purity alumina.

Drilling to establish a JORC resource is expected to start before the end of the first quarter.

King said that by the end of 2020, the company hoped to have established a JORC resource for Mt Mansbridge and completed a pre-feasibility study for a low capex DSO operation for the Mt Kokeby project off the back of firm offtake interest.

Now Read:
Higher recoveries a good sign for Red Mountain’s kaolin DSO project
Red Mountain goes long at Mt Mansbridge as rare earths outlook heats up

This story was developed in collaboration with Red Mountain Mining, 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.