Mining

RareX uncovers wide high-grade intercept at Cummins Range rare earths project

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By Danica Cullinane - 
RareX Limited ASX REE In-fill and extensional drilling Cummins Range TREO

Drilling at the WA project has delivered RareX’s “best-ever” intercept with further results expected next week.

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Diversified explorer RareX (ASX: REE) has announced further “exceptional” results from a recent infill and extensional reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at its flagship Cummins Range rare earths project in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

The company has now received results for the first 11 holes of the program with assaying ongoing and further results expected next week.

The latest results come from two RC holes located 100m along strike from recently-reported high-grade results and include a 90m wide intersection grading at 3.8% total rare earth oxides (TREO) plus 0.3% niobium oxide from a depth of 4m.

Within this, a 3m section graded as high as 11.3% TREO and 0.5% niobium oxide from 7m, while an average of 9% TREO and 0.6% niobium oxide was recorded over 5m starting from 64m down-hole.

Another hole returned an 8m mineralised intercept including 2m at 10.4% TREO and 0.04% niobium oxide from 30m.

The company said the strongly mineralised results are a “significant improvement” on the previous drilling in the immediately area and confirm the presence of an outcropping, thick high-grade mineralised channel trending north-west.

“Best-ever” Cummins Range drilling result

RareX managing director Jeremy Robinson said the 90m intercept was “easily the best-ever hole drilled at Cummins Range and would have to be up there globally” from anything he could recall.

“It provides a strong indication of the quality, scale and grade of this deposit, which is characterised by its high neodymium-praseodymium content and location in a tier one mining jurisdiction,” he said.

The assay results support the company’s strategy of delineating a higher-grade component within the overall inferred mineral resource at Cummins Range of 13 million tonnes at 1.13% TREO with 22% neodymium-praseodymium content.

Weld North drilling

Meanwhile, Mr Robinson said maiden drilling is set to begin at the Weld North rare earths project in November.

The recently acquired project is located 350km from Kalgoorlie and about 84km north of Lynas Corporation’s (ASX: LYC) new Mt Weld rare earths mine.

According to RareX, Weld North hosts a large, circular magnetic anomaly prospective for carbonate host mineralisation similar to that found at Mt Weld.

“The circular shape and size comparison to Mt Weld indicates that the Weld North magnetic anomaly is highly prospective for a significant rare earths discovery,” the company said.

RareX plans to undertake air core drilling to test under the cover sequence to evaluate whether the magnetic anomaly source is caused by a similar carbonatite intrusion to Mt Weld.