RareX secures land access and heritage agreement for Khaleesi rare earth project in WA
RareX (ASX: REE) has negotiated a land access and heritage agreement with traditional landowners over the historic Khaleesi niobium and rare earths project in the east Yilgarn region of Western Australia.
The agreement with Upurli Upurli Nguratja Aboriginal Corporation (UUNAC) covers the majority of the project tenure, which sits within the native title determination area.
Material terms of the agreement allow RareX to explore Khaleesi in consideration for the issue of one million shares to UUNAC.
Exploration plans
Managing director James Durrant said the company would now progress exploration at the project.
“This milestone is the key enabler for exploration drilling on the most prospective licences of the Khaleesi project and we expect to begin that work in October,” he said.
“We would like to thank UUNAC and its adviser Central Desert Native Title Services for undertaking good faith negotiations and we look forward to working with UUNAC for years to come.”
UUNAC’s native title rights were recognised in November and are aligned with the traditional laws and customs of the Western Desert Cultural Bloc.
Site access
Mr Durrant said the company would now focus on finalising site access agreements for the remaining pending project licences with companies including Deep Yellow (ASX: DYL) – which owns the neighbouring Mulga Rocks project – and AngloGold Ashanti, which owns the main Tropicana access road.
RareX is currently re-assaying drill core and generating new drill targets via a passive seismic survey.
It is also preparing for the upcoming drilling program.
Intrusive complex
The Khaleesi project contains an alkaline intrusive complex 20 kilometres in diameter of the same style and scale as the Caldeira project in Brazil owned by Meteoric Resources (ASX: MEI).
The project is geologically proximal to Lynas Rare Earths’ (ASX: LYC) Mt Weld project and located along strike from the highly-endowed Ponton Dyke, which has returned some of Australia’s best rare earth intersections.
Prior exploration over the project area targeted shallow gold in the overlying sediments, with data from more than 10,000m of drilling indicating the potential for niobium enrichment in the basement rocks, rare earth enrichment and continued prospectivity for precious and base metals.
Mr Durrant said RareX had carried out geological theory and re-modelling work to generate different types of targets to those featured in past drilling efforts.