American Rare Earths successfully completes drilling programme at Halleck Creek

The Halleck Creek project was previously announced to be a 1.43 billion t JORC resource, making it potentially the largest strategic rare earth project in the US.

Highlights:

• The programme, totalling 2389 m (23 holes), has been completed on schedule with assay results expected in December 2023.
• High grade zones identified, with XRF grades observed up to 8,875 ppm. All drillholes in the programme confirmed enriched rare earth mineralisation and de minimis levels of uranium and thorium.
• The company announced on 3 October 2023 enriched mineralisation to be present to at least a depth of 300 m (an increase of 178% over previous drilling), indicating the resource may be much larger than previously expected. Only 25% of the deposit has been drilled, and the deposit remains open at depth and width.
• Following receipt of its assay results the company plans to upgrade its previously announced JORC resource.
• Two t of core material obtained during the programme is being shipped to the company’s partner laboratories to assess and quantify metallurgical characteristics through the proposed hydrometallurgical facility.

The drilling programme focused on confirming high-grade mineable area(s) to define a significant volume of measured and indicated resources, which is necessary for resource reporting requirements and can provide greater confidence as the company refines its future strategy at Halleck Creek. Core material obtained from this drilling programme will be used to further refine the flowsheet design and inform cost estimates for use in a Preliminary Economic Analysis (PEA), building upon the recently announced positive metallurgical tests.

“This drilling campaign was an important initial step on our development path,” said Donald Swartz, Chief Executive Officer of American Rare Earths. “Our next steps are to ship the core material we have extracted to laboratories. Concentrate will be prepared, then dispatched to several downstream testing facilities to continue de-risking the project utilising our low-cost processing technology. I’d like to thank our geologists and technical staff for their strong execution managing this exploration programme, which was completed on schedule and within budget.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/02112023/american-rare-earths-successfully-completes-drilling-programme-at-halleck-creek/