American Rare Earths Ltd (ASX:ARR) has looked back on its achievements in the December quarter as it works to become the next major rare earth and critical minerals business.
In Friday’s quarterly report, ARR managing director and CEO Chris Gibbs recapped progress made across the company’s project portfolio, which includes the La Paz Project in Arizona and the Halleck Creek Project in Wyoming.
Over the March quarter, the rare earths and critical minerals stock has several key initiatives lined up, including resource definition drilling at La Paz and a maiden drilling campaign at Halleck Creek.
American Rare Earths ended 2021 with slightly more than $8.1 million in the bank to support its future endeavours.
ARR’s vision
Speaking to the outlook for ARR and the business’ plans for the March quarter, Gibbs stated:
“With US projects and US leadership presence, American Rare Earths is well-positioned to grow the company and be at the forefront of the US rare earth industry transformation.
“For the past two years, the US team have been working diligently with various research and development (R&D) partners to establish our presence with a number of the rare earth innovation efforts.
“It’s our vision to be more than just a mining company but rather a technology leader in this space: vertically integrated and one day producing the rare earth metals that are critical to our future.
“It’s our strategy to not only focus on developing our rare earth mining projects that have some of the cleanest ore in the world but to work collaboratively with R&D leaders building processing and refining capability, using new, disruptive, green and clean technologies that will provide critical minerals for future generations.
“To achieve our vision, we are adopting a ‘book end’ strategy under the umbrella of ESG to create shareholder value and reduce time to market.
In a bid to close the supply chain gap, ARR plans to:
Developing its major projects through all stages of mine development to produce a rare earth concentrate; and
Work with R&D leaders and partners to develop processing and refining capability to produce a metal product.
The quarter ahead
ARR has lined up several key initiatives to complete in the March quarter and claims it is well capitalised to deliver on its initiatives.
These include:
- Drilling at the La Paz Project’s new Southwest area next month, with the goal to significantly increase the 170million-tonne JORC resource;
- Commencing a maiden drill program at Halleck Creek and continue exploration activities;
- Planning additional drilling and permitting for the Halleck Creek resource drill program;
- Continuing metallurgical testing to advance the La Paz Project;
- Working collaboratively with the US Department of Energy project partners, the Critical Minerals Institute (CMI); and
- Developing a stakeholder engagement and management plan.
December quarter milestones
Between September and December last year, American Rare Earths continued to progress its projects towards key milestones.
Its flagship La Paz Project saw drill permits approved for the new southwest area, where there’s an exploration target estimate of between 742 and 928 million tonnes with 350 to 400 total rare earth oxides (TREO).
Notably, the exploration target is in addition to the company’s existing JORC resource.
Meanwhile, at Halleck Creek, ARR spent the quarter finalising plans for the project’s maiden drilling program.
This could unearth the asset’s underlying potential, with estimates it could hold even more resource than the La Paz project.
Roughly 308 to 385 million tonnes of rare earth mineralised rocks were identified as an exploration target, bearing an average TREO Grade of 2330 parts per million to 2912 parts per million.
Permits were approved in the December quarter and drilling is scheduled to commence in the first three months of the new year.
Outside of exploration, ARRs US-based leadership team established relationships with three key researchers seeking funding from the US Defense Agency's (DARPA) new rare earth element bioengineering program.
Corporate activities
The December quarter marked several key changes across ARR’s executive and leadership teams.
Most notably, Chris Gibbs took the helm as CEO and managing director in November, bringing more than 28 years of experience across several resources jurisdictions to the role.
Noel Whitcher also joined the team in early November as chief financial officer, while Melissa Sanderson was recruited to the ARR board as a non-executive director.
There were moves in the listing world, too: ARR successfully applied for its shares to trade on the over-the-counter (OTC) markets in the US at the ‘QB’ level.
In addition, an A$5.79 million capital raise further bolstered the company’s coffers ahead of what’s looking to be a busy 2022.