Australian Rare Earths Limited (ASX: AR3) has commenced a major new air- core drilling program at its flagship 100%-owned Koppamurra Rare Earths Project in the South Australia- Victoria border region of Australia.
The program will comprise an additional +10,000m of air-core drilling, building on the 21,000m of drilling already completed at the Project which formed the basis of the updated Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 81.4Mt at 785ppm TREO announced in July 2022 (see ASX release – 104% increase in Mineral Resource for Koppamurra Rare Earths Project, 4 July 2022) and Table 1/Figure 3 within this release.
Drilling will continue until the end of the year and into early 2023, with a short break over the Christmas and New Year period. Approximately 1,000 samples will be generated each week and submitted to the Company’s laboratory, Bureau Veritas in Adelaide.
Australian Rare Earths Acting Managing Director, Rick Pobjoy, said the re-commencement of drilling at Koppamurra marked another step in the Company’s strategy to establish a globally significant, long- life rare earths business in South Australia.
“After delivering what turned out to be a game-changing resource increase in July, we are now moving ahead with the next step in our development plan with a new phase of drilling designed to upgrade and further expand this high-quality deposit,” he said.
“Drilling will target immediate extensions of the MRE, within the Exploration Target and Inferred resource areas which will progress the confidence in the resource footprint and classification, underpinning the economic feasibility of the project.”
“The consistent nature of the deposit enables expedient drilling and rapid Resource growth as well as the ability to undertake progressive rehabilitation, all of which continues to distinguish Koppamurra as a unique rare earth business opportunity.
“The key attributes of Koppamurra include its Tier-1 jurisdiction location, a rare earth element suite that offers the potential to supply both the light and heavy rare earths required for high strength permanent magnets, the shallow, free-digging nature of the mineralisation and a low CAPEX development pathway that offers the potential for a modular, staged approach.
“Significantly, the updated Mineral Resource and adjoining Exploration Targets are based on just 5 per cent of our exploration tenure, highlighting the potential for what could become a generational sized deposit.”
For further information please visit: https://ar3.com.au/
