Resources Top 4: REE gains not so rare lately – Ark Mines bursts up on major deposit reveal

Rare earths continue to grab the ressie limelight, with Ark Mines unveiling 21.7Mt REE and mineral sands resource
Ora Gold teams up with Westgold to bring OAU’s high-grade Crown Prince deposit into production
Lord Resources and Falcon Metals are also still flying high on the ASX today

Here are some of the biggest resources winners in early trade, Thursday May 30.

Ark Mines (ASX:AHK)

Minerals explorer Ark Mines is well up today thanks to a “robust” Maiden Indicated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) at its Sandy Mitchell rare earth and heavy mineral project in northern Queensland.

It’s an “expectations exceeded” outcome this one, delivering an MRE of 21.7Mt at 1,419ppm Monazite Equivalent calculated using a 700ppm MzEq lower cut-off grade, the company notes.

And it reportedly places Sandy Mitchell as the “first surface-expressed Placer Rare Earth deposit with a JORC resource on the ASX”.

The reported MzEq grades are now expected by the company to “support strong project economics through simple low-cost downstream processing”.

The resource includes a bunch of high-value heavy minerals, including: monazite at 674ppm; zircon at 699ppm; rutile at 622ppm; xenotime at 89ppm; and ilmenite at 11,365ppm.

Want further context? Ark Mines executive director Ben Emery is good for that. He said:

“This maiden MRE has significantly exceeded our expectations. We have consistency in grade from surface to basement for a basket of high value minerals including combined Heavy Mineral grades of 13,450ppm.

“The commercialisation pathway for Sandy Mitchell is now more clearly defined, given the fact it is the simplest REE style of deposit to mine and beneficiate. Importantly, the MzEq grades of 1,419ppm are also indicative of potential commercial scale based on current market prices for monazite concentrate.”

Ora Gold (ASX:OAU)

This WA and NT-focused goldie is gearing up to join forces with miner Westgold (ASX:WGX) to bring OAU’s high-grade 240,000oz Crown Prince deposit into production.

WGX will also pick up $6m worth of shares in the junior for a ~15% cornerstone stake.

Crown Prince hosts a Mineral Resource of 240koz at 4.1g/t Au and is located on a granted mining lease with a Native Title Agreement in place.

The deposit is located approximately 33km northwest from Westgold’s Bluebird mill at Meekatharra, WA. Meekatharra is a major supply centre for the minerals-rich Murchison mining region.

As part of the two companies’ strategic alliance, ORA and WGX will agree upon the terms of an ore purchase agreement.

Ora’s CEO, Alex Passmore, said this:

“We are very pleased to announce the Westgold Strategic Alliance and Placement, which provides a short and tangible pathway to production and cash flow from Crown Prince.

“Ora and Westgold will work collaboratively over the next few months to define the development timetable. This alliance with a large regional operator with extensive processing infrastructure gives us strong confidence in the potential for future economic extraction of other advanced projects within our tenure.”

Ora Gold Limited (ASX: OAU) is pleased to advise it has entered into a binding agreement with Australian gold producer Westgold Resources Limited (WGX:ASX, OTCQX: WGXRF) in relation to a strategic co-operation relationship and $6.0 million placement.https://t.co/L3nJR3ViWj pic.twitter.com/5TsCiwpTIr

— Ora Gold (ASX:OAU) (@Ora_goldASX) May 30, 2024

Lord Resources (ASX:LRD)

Infill soil sampling work has confirmed multiple, large high-priority lithium-caesium-tantalum geochemical anomalies at Lord’s 100%-owned Jingjing lithium project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields.

This news has pushed LRD up another 15% so far today, and it’s now up about 18% over the past seven days.

Jingjing, which was acquired in May 2023, consists of two tenements that sit within the “Goldilocks Zone” for lithium-caesium-tantalum deposits. Jingjing is being explored independently of the company’s Horse Rocks, where exploration is being undertaken under a strategic partnership with Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN).

Falcon Metals (ASX:FAL)

(Up on Tuesday’s news)

Falcon, a Bendigo-focused goldie, is still flying pretty high on its high-grade mineral sands discovery announced a couple of days ago.

Falcon has has received high-grade results for its 91-hole aircore (AC) drilling program at its Farrelly mineral sands prospect in Victoria, which is a follow-up on high-grade reconnaissance drilling results announced in early March.

The new results confirm Farrelly as a high-grade mineral sands discovery with a thick zone of mineralisation (Main Zone) now defined covering an area of about 1,200 metres by 600 metres and remaining open in several directions.

Significant drill intercepts include: 26m at 8.9% THM (total heavy mineral concentrate) from 6m, with 15m at 12.9% THM from 13m; and 22m at 9.2% THM from 8m, including 12m at 15.1% THM from 16m as well as 3m at 20.3% THM from 21m.

High-grade #mineralsands discovery at our Farrelly Mineral Sands Prospect in Victoria defined over a ~1,200m x ~600m area. From 91 holes drilled, 33 holes contained intersections >10% THM, with 11 holes containing intersections >20% #THM.

Read: https://t.co/66N49brJqI $FAL pic.twitter.com/GZroNNCLse

— Falcon Metals Limited (@FalconMetalsLtd) May 28, 2024

The company also notes that “several additional high-grade intercepts up to 5km from the discovery indicate a potentially significant scale strandline-style system which requires further drilling to define”.

Zircon, ilmenite, and rutile are in play here, as well as potential rare-earth-element bearing monazite and xenotime, which are in-demand critical minerals.

In addition to being used as components in many household uses, mineral sands are being increasingly used in energy transition infrastructure.

Falcon Metals’ MD Tim Markwell said:

“The results at Farrelly are quite outstanding and define what appears to be a discovery of a continuous zone of high-grade heavy mineral sands over a sizable area, which remains open.

“While it is early days in our understanding of Farrelly, with more drilling and test work required, it is shaping up to become a significant mineral sands deposit, in proximity to other major deposits, but at far higher grades.”

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Ark Mines and Lord Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

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