Great Western Minerals reports 123 pct increase in resource estimate for Hoidas Lake rare earth element project

Canada’s Great Western Minerals Group Ltd (TSX-V: GWG; OTCBB: GWMGF) said the new NI 43-101 technical report for its Hoidas Lake rare earth element project prepared by Barr Engineering Co has increased the overall resource estimate by 123 percent to 2.561 million tonnes from the previous 1.15 million tonnes.

This includes a massive increase in the measured category to 963,808 tonnes from the previous estimate of 80,000 tonnes, and an increase of 49 percent in the Indicated category to 1.597 million tonnes from the previous 1.07 million tonnes estimate.

This new technical report incorporates the results of 32 drill holes completed in the spring of 2008 and includes drilling results from four separate drilling programs conducted from 2001 through to 2008 for a total of 120 core holes located along a strike length of 1,150 metres. These core holes, some of which extend to a depth of 398 metres, total 15,222.8 metres of drilling. The rare earth mineralization is open along strike and at depth. 

At a cut-off grade of 1.5 percent total rare earth elements (TREE), the measured resource stands at 963,808 tonnes grading 2.141 percent TREE and the indicated category has 1.597 million tonnes at 1.958 percent TREE. There is a further 286,596 tonnes at 1.784 percent TREE in the inferred category.

TREE include lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, lutetium, yttrium and ytterbium.

Of the average value of TREE , 87 percent is made up of lanthanum, cerium and neodymium with neodymium grades averaging 0.42 percent of the measured and indicated resource.  This high proportion of Nd, used in permanent magnet electric motors, supports the economics of the Hoidas Lake project and moving forward with the preliminary economic assessment report, Great Western Minerals said.

President and CEO Jim Engdahl commented:  “Our belief always was that we could at least double the resource estimate for this project and this update certainly confirmed that. This reinforces our belief that this could be a much larger deposit since we have drilled a relatively small portion of the property. Once we receive the results of our ongoing metallurgy we will be able to complete the remaining items for the preliminary economic assessment report."

Great Western Minerals has six rare earth exploration and development properties in North America with an option on a sizable additional property in South Africa.

In addition, as part of the company's strategy to pursue a vertically-integrated business model, its wholly-owned subsidiaries of Less Common Metals Ltd located in Birkenhead UK, and Great Western Technologies Inc, located in Troy, Michigan, produce a variety of specialty alloys for use in the battery, magnet and aerospace industries. These "designer" alloys include those containing copper, nickel, cobalt and the rare earth elements.

In mid-October, the company said a trench sampling programme at its 100 percent-owned Douglas River project in northern Saskatchewan, had verified heavy rare earth element (HREE) grades. HREE - europium through lutetium plus yttrium - are in short supply and are vital to applications like permanent magnets, flat panel displays, lasers and energy efficient lighting.  In particular, dysprosium is required to give a neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnet the ability to perform under high temperatures such as those experienced under the hood of a hybrid vehicle where the permanent magnet electric motor resides.

The company has in place a letter of intent with Toyota Tsusho Corp over discussing joint exploration possibilities for the Douglas River and Benjamin River exploration projects.