American Rare Earths Ltd (ASX:ARR, OTCQB:ARRNF) has successfully completed the 2023 development drilling program at its flagship Halleck Creek project in Wyoming, which is potentially the largest strategic rare earth project in the United States.
The drilling program at Halleck Creek was focused on confirming high-grade mineable areas to define a significant volume of measured and indicated resources. This is necessary for resource reporting requirements and can provide greater confidence as the company refines its future strategy at Halleck Creek.
The drilling program
The program, totalling 2,389 metres, identified high-grade zones with XRF grades observed up to 8,875 parts per million (ppm). All 23 drill holes in the program confirmed enriched rare earth mineralisation.
The company confirmed that the program was completed on schedule and assay results are expected in December.
The two tonnes of core material obtained during the program is now being shipped to the company’s partner laboratories to assess and quantify metallurgical characteristics through the proposed hydrometallurgical facility.
This core material will be used to further refine the flowsheet design and inform cost estimates for use in a preliminary economic analysis (PEA), building upon the recently announced positive metallurgical tests.
Once assay results are received, the company plans to upgrade its previously announced 1.43 billion tonne JORC resource.
Much larger than previously expected
Completion of the development drilling program follows news early last month that enriched mineralisation was present to a depth of at least 300 metres — a 178% increase over previous drilling.
This suggests that the resource could be much larger than previously expected. So far only 25% of the deposit has been drilled and it remains open at depth and width.
An important initial step
American Rare Earths CEO Donald Swartz said: “This drilling campaign was an important initial step on our development path.”
“Our next steps are to ship the core material we have extracted to laboratories. Concentrate will be prepared, then dispatched to several downstream testing facilities to continue de-risking the project utilising our low-cost processing technology.”