Brazilian Critical Minerals (ASX:BCM) has updated the mineral resource estimate for the Ema Project in Brazil, which represents a 97% increase from the previous estimate.
In January 2025, the company updated the resource estimate to 350 million tonnes @ 778 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxide (TREO). The Starter Zone’s resource also contained 126 million tonnes @ 772ppm TREO in the indicated category.
The project’s global resource now contains 943 million tonnes @ 716ppm TREO, with the Starter Zone’s indicated and inferred resource rising to 341 million tonnes @ 746ppm TREO.
Brazilian Critical Minerals adds that 73% of the Starter Zone’s resource sits in the indicated category.
Managing Director Andrew Reid says the updated resource now contains all the assay results from the 2024 drilling program.
“The Central Starter Zone which is our main focus for the Scoping Study now contains 73% of the tonnes within the higher confidence indicated JORC category,” Reid says.
“This result now confirms the size and scale of the Central Starter area, and the larger indicated portion of the resource gives us greater confidence as we wrap up the final items of the Scoping Study prior to release.
“The Ema Scoping Study has had a clear objective to maximise the natural advantages that the Ema mineralisation has granted us to develop a project which requires low-capital intensity and low ongoing operational expenditure to generate a set of project financials which maintain solid cashflows at current depressed rare earth prices.”
Brazilian Critical Minerals says the Scoping Study is being finalised and pending release during the current quarter.
The Ema Project, located in the State of Amazonas in Brazil, covers 189km2 and shares similar characteristics with ionic-rare earth element deposits developed over felsic volcanic rocks in southwest China — which is the world’s largest known ionic clay region.
Brazilian Critical Minerals is a mineral explorer focused on discoveries in Brazil.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: iStock
