Victory has received further validation about the clay-hosted rare earths potential of its North Stanmore project near Cue, WA, after RC drilling returned results typically seen in hard rock deposits.

Expedited assaying of reverse circulation hole NSTRC071, which had significantly elevated pXRF analyses, returned a 1m intersection grading 1.08% total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 39m.

This result is in line with further assays that Victory Metals (ASX:VTM) has received from aircore drilling to date, which confirmed an average grade of 1,023 parts per million (0.1%) TREO with a top intercept of 1m at 10,829ppm (1.08%) TREO.

Importantly, valuable heavy REEs and magnet rare REEs make up a large chunk of the TREO content with HREEs accounting for 36% of the total, neodymium and praseodymium making up 19.3% while dysprosium and terbium took up 4.1% of the total.

Victory has good reason to be excited as the results are significantly higher than the average grade of 800ppm seen in ion adsorption-type rare earth element deposits hosted in clays.

“These are significant results within clay REE style deposits, and we are pleased that Victory’s rare earth discovery in Western Australia continues to prove itself,” executive director Brendan Clark said.

“Today’s highlighted TREO assay result is comparable with hard rock deposit grades and provides further evidence that the North Stanmore regolith hosts a high-grade ionic clay rare earth system.

“It is a strategic approach to conduct ammonium sulphate leachate analyses with Intertek as this will provide early data that will assist the metallurgical process overall. Metallurgy is about finding the right blend of material to process as well as optimising the chemistry of the leach reagent.”

He added that the company’s early understanding is that the heavy REE-enriched part of the regolith could potentially be extracted with less difficulty than the light REE-enriched part of the system that is not particularly valuable outside of its NdPr content.

The company has now received about 58% of the assays from its two aircore drill programs and expects to receive the remaining aircore, RC and diamond assays in batches throughout the first quarter of 2023.

Besides the assay results, Victory will also continue metallurgical test work, prepare the maiden JORC resource and further exploration as North Stanmore remains open in all directions.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Victory Metals, 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.

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