Godolphin to upgrade NSW rare earths resource after 25-hole probe

Mineral explorer Godolphin Resources is knee deep in a diamond drilling program at its Narraburra rare earth project near Temora in central-west New South Wales after completing 15 of a proposed 25 holes at the site.

The company plans to use data from the 1500m campaign to scrub up the project’s historical JORC 2004 resource and align it with contemporary 2012 standards.

Godolphin says Narraburra is one of the country’s largest rare earth resources and says the tenure is also prospective for a cocktail of additional in-vogue commodities – namely lithium and rare metals.

The project has been formally recognised by the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science and Resources in the Government’s Critical Minerals Strategy document as a “major” rare earths deposit.

The Australian Trade and Investment Commission has also listed Narraburra as a “critical minerals project” within its framework. All of which means Godolphin could potentially lean on the Government for funding, information and support.

According to the company, the current drill campaign could be wrapped up in the next few weeks and will be followed by the delivery of a JORC 2012 estimate in the first quarter of next year.

Management says samples from the ongoing campaign have already been mobilised to an assay laboratory for detailed mineralogical analysis.

Godolphin says the site’s mineralisation is hosted in shallow clays, silts and sand and notably kicks of right from surface and currently extends to a depth of 50m.

The company initially planned to table the revised resource estimate through a 4000m air core program but shelved the probe in favour of the in-progress diamond campaign due to the area’s lithology and wet weather conditions.

It says aircore drilling in periods of rain could create issues with sample quality and render the specimens ineffective for resource estimation.

Godolphin picked up the Narraburra rare earths project earlier this year after signing a two-tranche farm-in and joint venture agreement with private explorer EX9. The deal allows Godolphin to earn up to 75 per cent of the operation through a multi-million dollar outlay in exploration and development.

Importantly, the asset came gift wrapped with a rare earths resource totalling 73.2 million tonnes – albeit not to Jorc 2012 standards.

Although the figure did not then conform with the current JORC 2012 standard it did offer up a rare earths grade of 327 grams per tonne rare earth oxides along with notable concentrations of yttrium, niobium, zirconium and lithium

Outside of delivering a revised resource estimate, Management says the in-progress diamond drilling program will allow it to test Narraburra’s rare earths potential at depth and collect samples for metallurgical analysis.

Narraburra comprises of a pair of tenements and occupies a total land position of roughly 350 square kilometres in NSW’s highly prospective Lachlan Fold Belt.

According to the company, earlier metallurgical test work on samples bagged from the site points to the zirconium and niobium potentially being economically recovered.

Rare earths are a class of 17 elements that are readily used in the green energy space to produce industrial scale magnets for wind turbines and electric vehicles amongst other things.

With economies worldwide rapidly transitioning to low-carbon energy sources, a host of new players, including Godolphin, have dived into the lucrative industry.

Godolphin was once solely intent on sniffing out gold and copper in NSW but has, over the past year or so, shed its precious and semi-precious skin and emerged as something of a new entrant in the new energy space.

And with the world clamouring for local supply of just about everything rare earths and critical minerals, that transition could yet prove to be an astute piece of work.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au