Summit scores highest niobium grade yet at new Brazilian mining lease

Summit’s new Brazilian mining lease returns up to 64.61% niobium pentoxide
Drilling plans for the Equador project are now being revised
Metallurgical test work underway to fast-track production

Special Report: Summit Minerals says bulk sampling from a new mining lease at its Equador niobium, tantalum and rare earths project in Brazil has returned the highest grade niobium assays to date.

The newly acquired mining lease at Equador North has returned the highest-grade rock chip sample results to date, including:

64.61% Nb2O5, 10.56% Ta2O5 and 2,830 ppm PREO (a collection of 10 valuable rare earth elements)
62.42% Nb2O5, 11.82% Ta2O5 and 38,440 ppm PREO
61.09% Nb2O5, 6.86% Ta2O5 and 15,430 ppm PREO
50.47% Nb2O5, 12.00% Ta2O5 and 87,970 ppm PREO
45.89% Nb2O5, 19.36% Ta2O5 and 11,720 ppm PREO
44.60% Nb2O5, 21.10% Ta2O5 and 3,690 ppm PREO
43.97% Nb2O5, 23.38% Ta2O5 and 12,840 ppm PREO
42.09% Nb2O5, 7.19% Ta2O5 and 11,820 ppm PREO; and
36.64% Nb2O5, 15.98% Ta2O5 and 25,400 ppm PREO.

In addition, the Equador central and southern areas continues to show potential with further promising niobium and tantalum results of:

35.52% Nb2O5, 30.57% Ta2O5 and 1,930 ppm PREO
23.94% Nb2O5, 20.41% Ta2O5 and 62,510 ppm PREO; and
20.10% Nb2O5, 39.64% Ta2O5 and 1,540 ppm PREO.

With the recent acquisition of this existing mining lease to compliment the land holding at the Equador project along with further high-grade assay results from within this lease area, the drilling plans for the Equador Project are being revised to take advantage of the new ground and further high-grade results.

On the fast track

The revised drilling plan will take into account results from metallurgical test work, to allow a full complement of updated information to specifically target the highest prospective areas of niobium and tantalum.

This will assist in fast tracking resource definition and a future pathway to production.

“With the addition of Equador North, the whole continues to grow beyond our initial expectations,” Summit Minerals (ASX:SUM) MD Gower He said.

“We are focused on fast tracking this project as much as possible within the constraints of local service providers and the legal mining framework specific to the region.”

The metallurgical test work program is expected to take a few months to complete, and will allow the company to generate a flow sheet to produce an economic concentrate, validating the potential economic viability of the project.

Meanwhile, the permitting process at the project is now nearing its finalisation, and the company is performing other exploration work in parallel while this process continues, with field work being conducted across the Equador North mining lease to expand out on the current results and to investigate prospective mining sites.

This article was developed in collaboration with Summit Minerals, 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.