American Rare Earths Ltd (ASX:ARR) is encouraged by preliminary test work results on ore from its Halleck Creek Project in Wyoming, USA, which show a simple process is all that is needed to produce a rare earth concentrate and maximise the recovery of neodymium and praseodymium.
The company completed the metallurgical test work on samples from its maiden drilling campaign and found that the ore responds well to conventional technology, which will reduce the project’s operating and capital costs.
Initial tests using Wet High Intensity Magnetic Separation (WHIMS) yielded 90.5% Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) recovery for a cumulative grade of 1.18% TREO (11,200 parts per million).
The test work was guided by Wood PLC, one of the leading engineering companies in the world.
Results exceed expectations
"These latest metallurgical test results are extremely encouraging and continue to advance the Halleck Creek Project a step closer towards commercial reality,” ARR chief executive officer and managing director Chris Gibbs said.
“Metallurgy is the key to any mining project and these recent results continue to exceed our expectations.
“This simple process flow sheet translates to lower operating costs, and reduced capital investment and environmental impact.
“Having low thorium and uranium penalty elements are a huge advantage for this project to produce a low-cost rare earth concentrate.
“From a mining perspective, the recent drill assay results announced on February 13 indicate a large scale, low-cost open pit mining operation.
“Together with these metallurgical results, Halleck Creek is shaping up to be the rare earth equivalent of a major copper/gold porphyry deposit, comparable to the likes of major mines operated by Freeport-McMoRan and Rio Tinto.”
More tests
ARR has made significant progress to advance the Halleck Creek project over the past few months.
The company is on track to define a significant maiden JORC resource by the end of March once the final assay results are received.
In the meantime, more tests will be conducted to optimise the production process, including bulk WHIMS testing which is underway at the Nagrom Laboratories.