Gold Mountain (ASX:GMN) is on the verge of a potential partnership with state-owned Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB) as it begins uranium exploration across its clay-hosted rare earth elements (REE) tenements in Brazil.
The $8.6 million market capitalisation company says it has communicated with the Agência Nacional de Mineração (ANM) and will agree to carry out uranium exploration.
If found, the agreement with the INB will be entered into, as is required for the development of any uranium resources in Brazil.
In December 2022, Law 14,514/2022 came into force, taking away full control of uranium mining from INB. Under the law, INB maintains the monopoly over ‘nuclear minerals and their concentrates, associates and derivatives’, yet it can delegate specific activities to private companies.
Activities include the research, mining, commercialisation, and treatment of uranium and its products, development of technologies for the use of uranium, as well as building and operating installations for the treatment, concentration, and improvement of nuclear minerals.
The company has amassed a land position over 970km-square, including 51 granted tenements and 11 applications in the ‘highly prospective’ Jequié REE province.
Exploration has begun following ‘encouraging’ pegging activities by neighbour Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX:BRE), who have taken areas with thorium responses along structural strike from Gold Mountain tenements that cover ‘high order’ thorium anomalies to the north of and southwest of Amargosa.
However, while there is no guarantee Gold Mountain will have similar levels of results as achieved by Brazilian Rare Earths, the company notes they will assist in forming a basis for planned and targeted exploration.
Gold Mountain is in the process of undertaking desktop studies of geomorphology and satellite imagery interpretation to begin followed by aircore drilling.
Satellite imagery interpretation has been designed to define the iron caps on the tops of fully preserved weathering profiles and a quote for the specialist imagery interpreter is expected before the end of this week.
The company is in the process of setting up a local base to facilitate a full time dedicated team to fast-track exploration at the Down Under REE Project.
Gold Mountain is a mineral explorer with projects in Brazil and Papua New Guinea. The assets, which are considered ‘highly prospective’ for a range of metals including REEs, lithium, nickel, copper, and gold, are now actively being explored.
Write to Adam Drought at Mining.com.au
Images: Gold Mountain
