Encounter Resources Shows District-Scale Potential of West Arunta Region with Drilling at Aileron REE Targets

Encounter Resources (ASX: ENR) has intersected rare earth element (REE) fluorocarbonate minerals in untargeted diamond drilling at the Green and Juan prospects within its Aileron project in Western Australia.

The combined results have highlighted the district-scale potential of the West Arunta region’s large carbonatite intrusions over a distance of more than 40 kilometres.

Located in a remote area of east-central WA, the region has become a global hotspot in the hunt for niobium in recent years.

Basal Contact Drilling

Maiden bedrock drill testing of Green’s prospective basal contact identified bastnaesite, synchysite, and parasite, while also uncovering multiple intersections of primary REE mineralisation.

Best assays were 19 metres at 1.7% TREO (total rare earth oxides) from 46m, 5m at 2.7% TREO within 13m at 1.4% TREO from 46m, and 8m at 1.3% TREO within 32m at 0.7% TREO.

With Green extending over more than 3km of strike, Encounter believes the basal contact represents a large new search space for high-grade REE mineralisation within the West Arunta.

Highly Anomalous REE

Encounter’s first-pass aircore drilling across the Juan prospect identified highly-anomalous REE more than 10km from existing niobium-REE deposits.

One of the holes returned an intercept of 6m at 0.9% TREO from 48m (with REE anomalism to end of hole), while others along the same line returned anomalous REE above 0.1% TREO.

The results have affirmed Encounter’s targeting model and provided another intersection of near-surface mineralisation in a new area of reconnaissance drilling at West Arunta.

Regional Scale and Potential

Executive chair Will Robinson said drilling continued to demonstrate West Arunta’s exceptional scale and potential, positioning Encounter at the forefront of Australia’s next major niobium–rare earth province.

“Zones of high-grade rare earth and niobium mineralisation are often found proximal to one another within mineralised carbonatite complexes such as at the world’s largest niobium deposit at Araxá in Brazil, and the Mt Weld REE deposit in Australia,” he said.

“Given the frequency of REE intersections in untargeted drilling in the West Arunta, we believe our focused exploration has a high probability of delineating more of these high-grade zones.”

“There’s probably no better place in Australia right now to be exploring for rare earths,” he added.