Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp said it has extracted a bulk sample from its Alces Lake discovery in northern Saskatchewan which it plans to ship off for beneficiation testing as part of its metallurgical collaboration with CanmetMINING.
Appia said it will ship the sample to CanmetMINING in the next few days. The primary focus of the test program will be to optimize and enhance the development of an Alces Lake Project flowsheet and to confirm other material testing that has been previously conducted by other parties on the Alces Lake monazite.
The tests are expected to include grinding, flotation, magnetic separation, ore sorting and dense medium separation (DMS). The goal is to create a comprehensive testing approach that will produce a high-grade rare earth mineral concentrate from the Alces Lake mineralized material, Appia added.
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The company said it extracted 0.9 tons of mineralized material from the Alces Lake Deposit, 0.6 tons of which will be shipped to SGS Canada's Lakefield facility in Ontario for crushing and sizing ahead of test work. The remainder will be shipped at a later date, it added, and once the preparatory work is done, the sample will be shipped to CanmetMINING for testing.
Federal research and development assistance is provided through the collaboration agreement with CanmetMINING, under their Critical Minerals Research, Development and Demonstration program, the company says. The program’s objective is to stimulate the development of battery and permanent magnet value chains in Canada.
Appia commenced drilling at Alces Lake in March this year and plans to drill significantly deeper holes in 2022 compared to the 100 holes (approximately 8,075 meters) drilled in 2021. The idea is to determine continuity at depth and along the identified rare earth element mineralization trends.
The company is working toward the publication of a maiden resource estimate in accordance with NI 43-101 for the area. Appia believes the project has the potential to be a world-class source of high-grade critical rare earth-bearing monazite.
Specifically, the Alces Lake project encompasses some of the highest-grade total and critical REEs and gallium mineralization in the world, hosted within a number of surface and near-surface monazite occurrences that remain open at depth and along strike.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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