Torian Resources has re-confirmed higher concentrations of Yttrium and associated critical heavy amongst its mixed basket of rare earths at the company’s Yttria rare earth prospect within its Mt Stirling gold project in WA.
The new results come courtesy of further assay work using “fusion digestion” which the company says was able to dissolve the refractory heavy rare earth solution and liberate Yttrium much more effectively.
The average heavy rare earth versus total rare earth ratio came in at an impressive 0.65 to 1. The company says this value indicates that ore from the Yttria prospect is significantly enriched in high value heavy rare earths including dysprosium and terbium – both critical minerals in permanent magnets used in electric vehicle motors.
Significant intercepts recently assayed from Yttria include 1 metre at 1141 parts per million total rare earths from 7m downhole, 4m grading 969 ppm total rare earths from 3m and 3m going 1293 ppm total rare earths from 9m downhole.
Yttria was first discovered within the company’s Mt Stirling gold project earlier this year through shallow AV drilling. AV drill Samples were initially sent for laboratory analysis employing the aqua regia leach technique that only partially digests rare earths bearing minerals.
Aqua regia is well-known to under-estimate metal grades however it is used in the exploration business as a cost-efficient first-pass assay tool.
Following the identification of anomalous grades through aqua regia, Torian sent the drill pulps for mixed acid digestion assay under high pressure and the results pointed to significantly higher heavy rare earth ratios.
With the increased confidence in its deposit, management decided to use an even more focussed assay method and submitted all samples from the Yttria prospect for “fusion extraction” and “ICP-MS analysis” - enabling the highest level of extraction to achieve optimal results.
Average fusion values calculated across 179 samples in addition to 6 duplicates from the Yttria prospect graded 525 ppm total rare earths with 332 ppm consisting of heavy rare earths. A further breakdown of the heavy rare earths showed the total rare earth values were made up of 23.5 ppm dysprosium, 183 ppm yttrium and 3.8 ppm terbium.
The neodymium and praseodymium or “NdPr” values were also solid, giving up an average of 55.6 ppm. Although NdPr is not in the heavy rare earth sphere it is still considered a high-value product in the production of electric vehicle motor magnets.
Assayed samples were taken across the approximately 1 kilometre anomaly at the Mt Stirling Central project area.
With an already substantial gold resource at its Mt Stirling project, Torian can now officially add another feather to its cap, becoming Australia’s newest rare earths explorer.
With heavy rare earths and the lighter neodymium and praseodymium become more and more sought after in conjunction with the boom in the electric vehicle market , prices have been skyrocketing over the last 18 months.
To add further fuel to the fire, critical heavy rare earths production required for many technologies that drive the modern world is dominated by China - leading to significant geopolitical risk to the supply chain in the west. If Torian can manage to pull off some decent rare earth numbers with follow up drilling it could be game changing for the fledgling explorer.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
