Australian Rare Earths is confident there is even further upside at its Koppamurra project in South Australia after successfully achieving a major mineral resource estimate (MRE) jump.
The company reported a 27% increase in the project’s MRE to 236 million tonnes and a 70% boost in the higher-grade subsets.
The estimate now includes 68 Mt grading over 1,000 parts per million total rare earth oxide (TREO).
Further growth
Managing director and chief executive officer Travis Beinke said there is significant scope for ongoing further growth, with mineralisation open to the north and south.
The current MRE covers only around 2% of the total Koppamurra tenure of 7,400 square kilometres.
“This substantial increase in the MRE, coupled with the improved grade and higher-grade tonnage, reinforces our belief in the project’s potential to become a strategically important, long-life supplier of critical rare earths,” Mr Beinke said.
“The updated MRE has underscored the significant potential for a shallow, higher-grade subset of the broader rare earth deposit.”
Improved understanding
According to consultant specialist IHC Mining Geological Services, the new MRE incorporates an improved understanding of the mineralised geological package, as well as element-specific variography analysis.
“Targeted in-fill drilling has identified thicker packages of mineralised clay while, at the same time, tightening up the previously identified high-grade areas,” IHC Mining manager Greg Jones said.
“IHC Mining considers this MRE to be a significant improvement over the previous estimate and […] the overall JORC classification confidence.”
MRE background
The updated MRE includes results from a drilling program undertaken between October and December 2023.
The overall program added 8,742m (694 holes) to the existing 55,979m (5,283 holes) drilled for the previous estimate announced in September 2023.
An exploration target across the entire Koppamurra project has increased the lower-range estimates, which now span from 500Mt to 3.2 billion tonnes with average grades ranging from 520ppm to 780ppm TREO.
This marks an improvement from the previous range of 330 Mt to 3.1Bt.
