Australian Rare Earths grows Koppamurra potential with drilling success
New drilling results have helped Australian Rare Earths (ASX: AR3) expand its promising Koppamurra ionic clay-hosted rare earths project in South Australia.
The latest assay results have helped extend mineralisation near the currently defined Koppamurra mineral resource estimate of 101 million tonnes at 818 parts per million total rare earth oxide (TREO) and more regionally within Victoria.
AR3 chief executive officer Travis Beinke said the latest results show the company is well on track to establishing a highly strategic and world-scale resource of ionic clay-hosted rare earths and will position the company to meet the strong demand growth forecast for non-Chinese rare earths.
AR3 management believes Koppamurra is particularly valuable because of its clay-hosted mineralisation which includes all four of the rare earth elements needed to make magnets for use in electric motors.
Resource update coming
Mr Beinke said the latest assays will form part of the resource update scheduled for later this year.
Notably, the mineralisation remains open to the north and south, providing scope for ongoing inventory growth.
“These are strong results which support our strategy to continue growing the highly valuable Koppamurra Resource.
“With the remaining assay results expected by the end of July, we look forward to updating our existing 101Mt mineral resource estimate and significant exploration target of 330 million to 1.4 billion tonnes later this year.”
AR3 is currently preparing for its next drilling program, which will commence in Q4 2023.
Eastern strike targeted
The latest regional drilling campaign, conducted from February to June 2023, consisted of 1,317 holes for 16,394m with around 8,500 assays later submitted to Bureau Veritas (BV) in Adelaide.
The most recent drilling targeted the eastern strike extension of Koppamurra mineralisation, which spans the South Australian-Victorian border.
Significant intersections from the latest drilling included 3m at 2,033 parts per million TREO from 7m, with 26.2% combined Neodymium/Praseodymium (Nd/Pr) and 2.7% Dysprosium (Dy).
Drilling on the Victorian side of the project intersected mineralised clays underlain by relatively shallow Mt Gambier limestone.
The eastern extent of shallow mineralisation was also characterised by increasing thickness of cover combined with lower grade intersections as drilling progressed eastwards.
Mr Beinke said this eastern boundary information will guide future exploration efforts defining a prospective province corridor which will be mapped more regionally across the company’s tenure.