American Rare Earths (ASX:ARR) confirms that the Halleck Creek Project, in Wyoming, US, can be upgraded, after conducting a metallurgical testwork program.
The testwork, conducted in collaboration with Minerals Technologies, upgraded mineralised feedstock from 0.34% total rare earth oxide (TREO) to 3.72% TREO — representing a 10:1 increase in rare earth concentrate.
Halleck Creek’s ore can be efficiently upgraded at scale using conventional, low-cost methods, which the company says further reinforces the fundamentals of the project.
American Rare Earths, which has a market capitalisation of $149.39 million, says that this means for every tonne of ore mined, only 6.5% requires further refining, which reduces the processing volumes and potentially lowers operating costs.
CEO Chris Gibbs says these results confirm what the company anticipated.
“Successfully demonstrating this at production scale is a major milestone, further de-risking the project as we advance toward development,” Gibbs says.
“This large-scale testwork validates the 10x upgrade assumption in our Scoping Study and provides further confidence in the project’s potential. With these results in hand, we will issue an updated Scoping Study shortly, incorporating the JORC resource increase announced earlier this month.”
American Rare Earths is also advancing metallurgical testwork to optimise recoveries, while also maintaining or improving the 10x upgrade factor.
In conjunction, the company is conducting hydrometallurgical testing to refine the flowsheet. The company says these results will provide a strong foundation for further process improvements as Halleck Creek progresses towards the Prefeasibility Study.
The Halleck Creek Project’s resource contains 2.63 billion tonnes @ 3,292 parts per million TREO and 7.48 million tonnes of contained TREO, including neodymium and praseodymium oxides.
American Rare Earths is a critical minerals company focused on reshaping the US rare earths industry.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: American Rare Earths
