A total 13.6 million tons at 2.42% total rare earth oxides (TREO) has been recorded in the inaugural mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the Monte Muambe project in northwest Mozambique.
FAST TRACK
Altona Rare Earths plc’s JORC compliant MRE, using a cut-off grade of 1.5%, includes 0.31% NdPrO representing 42,500 contained tons of neodymium and praseodymium oxides.
The indicated category contains 58% of the resource while mineralisation is open at depth at both targets 1 and 4.
The company, which is farming-into the project, said that the MRE focused on the high-grade zones of the deposit and was in line with expectations.
Monte Muambe is planned to fast track towards production by concentrating on the part of the deposit “most likely to be exploitable”, as opposed to “drilling for numbers”.
Future increases in resource will be achieved by drilling below the level of pit shells at target 1 and 4, resource drilling at target 3 and target 9, as well as ongoing exploration work.
MAGNITUDE
The company also expects to finalise the scoping study and the competent person’s report (CPR) by the third week of October.
Completion of the CPR will also trigger the increase of Altona’s holding in the project from 20% to 51% at the start of Phase III of the farm-in agreement.
“This is the first ever official measure of the size and grade of the project and we are delighted with the results, which confirm the presence of a potentially open-pit mineable REE resource,” added chief executive officer Cedric Simonet.
“The size is of the same order of magnitude as some of our published peers’ ore reserve estimates and will be further increased through down dip drilling at both target 1 and target 4, as well as resource drilling at target 3 and target 9.”