Venture Minerals (ASX: VMS) has continued a record-breaking spree at its Jupiter prospect in Western Australia’s Mid West region after nailing a 2m hit containing 5056 parts per million neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) oxides from 24m.
It is the site’s best magnet rare earth oxides (MREO) result to date and comes hot on the heels of what the company says was Australia’s “best-ever” rare earths intercept of 48m going 3025ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO), which it revealed last month. The latest 2m intersection also included a massive TREO grade of 13,906ppm and came within a bigger 9m-thick section reading 5020ppm.
Other drill assays came back at 25m grading 2711ppm TREO with a 12m section going 4131ppm, 48m going 1658ppm including 10m and 14m chunks respectively going 2124ppm and 2044ppm, 72m at 1406ppm, 42m at 2154ppm and 36m at 1991ppm.
Management says the 5056ppm oxide intersection is comprised of 3824ppm Nd oxide and 1232ppm Pr oxide. Both are highly-valuable and in-demand light rare earths that are critical in the manufacture of permanent magnets used in electric motors and defence applications, in addition to decarbonisation efforts.
Venture says the MREOs at Jupiter continue to average 23 per cent in intersections of more than 1000ppm TREO and there has also been some samarium – which is used in optical lasers, infrared absorbing glass and as a neutron absorber in nuclear reactors. The silvery-white metal has been seen in assays with several hits exceeding 100ppm and peaking at 389ppm in the same 2m section that returned the NdPr hit.
The head-turning results are from the second batch of assays from the company’s stage-one resource definition reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program at Jupiter. It was designed to follow up on last month’s headline-making intercept.
Jupiter continues to deliver broad zones of high-grade mineralisation with standout levels of REE minerals that are in high demand. The record intersection of over 5000ppm of NdPr oxides in these results compliments the previous batch of very-high grade results.
Venture Minerals managing director Andrew Radonjic.
Radonjic said the scale, high-grade nature of the results and prime location of the project provided all the necessary ingredients to position Jupiter as a “major rare earths discovery”.
Now, with even more assays back in the hands of its geologists, the company says it believes Jupiter holds consistent high-grade zones of clays grading more than 2000ppm TREO in widths of 20m to 30m.
When that grade cut-off is dropped to 1000ppm, Venture says the enrichments zones are up to 72m thick and, encouragingly for the downstream processing side of the business, contain consistently low uranium and thorium values.
The latest high-grade hits from Jupiter are far from isolated, with previous RC drilling returning hits as high as 2m at an eyebrow-raising 20,538ppm TREO, 2m at 10,266ppm, 12m grading 4673ppm, 20m at 2519ppm and 24m going 2060ppm. Notably, the drilling completed to date at Jupiter covers only a small portion of the footprint that has been defined by geophysics.
Jupiter is just one of a cluster of prospects making up Venture’s 1900-square-kilometre Brothers rare earths project that lies about 300km east of the port of Geraldton in WA’s Mid West region.
Brothers is also just 250km from Iluka’s Eneabba Rare Earths Refinery that is scheduled to be in production in next year and about 520km from Lynas Rare Earths’ operating Mount Weld concentrator.
Venture says it will assess its remaining stage-one drilling assays and mineralogical and metallurgical testwork to decide if it will proceed with a second phase of drilling. And it that is the case, yesterday’s confirmation that the company had received a cool $1.05 million rebate courtesy of the Australian Taxation Office will be more than handy.
The market seemed to enjoy the company’s record NdPr oxides find this morning, with buyers stepping in to give its share price a 14 per cent boost from yesterday’s close to touch a intraday high of 2.75c.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: office@bullsnbears.com.au