Thick intersections of a stellar 120m at 1724 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) plus yttrium from surface included the valuable magnet rare earths, neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), at 340ppm and a hit of 120m from surface going 1962ppm TREO plus yttrium including 336ppm NdPr. The Donkey Dam prospect produced a sterling 48m at 4155 TREO including yttrium from surface with 798ppm NdPr.

Follow-up testwork conducted by rare earths metallurgical specialists ANSTO Minerals validated Red Metal’s breakthrough leach results using chip samples from Sybella. The company says ANSTO’s supplementary findings back up its phase one testwork that was completed by Core Resources and showed high recoveries and low impurities using low levels of acid consumption for both valuable magnet and heavy rare earth oxides.

ANSTO Minerals is an arm of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation – a statutory agency that reports to the Federal Parliament. It ran similar bottle roll leach tests to the ones carried out by Core that used coarse non-pulverised chip samples from reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at Sybella.

Red Metal believes the matching results from both sets of testwork may point to an opportunity for low-cost processing, potentially using heap leach methods. It says only minor differences in acid consumption and rare earths extraction levels were identified and its phase two testwork used crushed drill core that will aid in the understanding of any slight variances in the results.

The phase two results evaluating leach responses for a range of size fractions tested by various methods are expected to be revealed shortly.

Management believes there is vast tonnage potential, with zones open north, south and at depth. It says future plans would involve open pit mining and an expected magnet rare earth oxides (MREO) figure of about 70 to 80 per cent payable, based on anticipated recovery levels.

The company says its work this year is expected to include the new drilling, the awaited phase two leaching tests, communition studies and purification studies on the pregnant, or metal laden, leach solutions.

The leach testwork results and the highly-anticipated drill program will go a long way towards identifying the true potential of Red Metal’s Sybella project.

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