White Cliff Minerals is eyeing a maiden JORC resource at its Hines Hill rare earths project near Merredin in WA’s Central Wheatbelt, with a shallow air-core drill program underway following solid results from last year’s campaign.
The company is targeting ionic absorption clay mineralisation in the top 20m of the project across a strike of 1km and a width of 800m, with some 90 air-core drill holes planned.
Last year’s maiden 49-hole air-core program at the site returned impressive results including 3m at 1602 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 6m. The standout discovery was inside a bigger 25m intercept running 837ppm TREO from a shallow depth of 6m.
Additional highlights showed a 4m parcel grading 1182ppm TREO from 45m. Wider results included a 36m interval grading 639ppm TREO from surface with a higher-grade 3m inclusion at 1126ppm TREO from 12m. Other results carved out in the campaign include 16m at 693ppm TREO from 24m and 12m going 637ppm from 42m.
White Cliff Minerals technical director Ed Mead said: “With this phase of drilling to cover 1km of strike and with a width of 800 metres, we hope that the results will enable us to define a maiden JORC resource, which will form the basis for moving the project forward towards metallurgical studies.”
Earlier this year, a roadside geochemical sampling campaign at Hines Hill lit up a host of priority target areas at its tenements which cover about 570 square kilometres. The campaign was headlined by a specimen running a maximum value of 930ppm TREO and the company is now eyeing 10 key areas for immediate follow-up.
Management believes a number of its new target zones are linked to magnetic features which are tentatively interpreted to host carbonatite-hosted rare earths mineralisation.
White Cliff has plenty of money to fund its latest exploration campaign at Hine Hill after a successful capital raise of up to $2.35 million and the sale of its Yinnetharra lithium-rare earths project to ASX-listed Minerals 260.
The company will receive seven million Minerals 260 shares and $100,000 cash for the sale of Yinnetharra in WA’s Gascoyne region. The transaction value of the deal comes to $2.445 million.
White Cliff argues that despite its divestment of the Gascoyne project, it maintains a vested interest in Yinnetharra through its shareholding, in addition to the potential upside of Minerals 260’s other exploration projects.
Rare earths are fast becoming one of the world’s most talked-about commodities and are predominantly used to create permanent magnets for electric vehicle motors. Recent projections indicate the transition from carbon to renewable energy could push the demand for magnet rare earths to 250,000 tonnes by 2035 – about triple that of today’s requirements.
With the release of a maiden JORC resource on the horizon and plenty of coin in the kitty to fund exploration, the market will be keeping a close eye on what White Cliff can unveil from its latest drill campaign at Hine Hill.
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By Michael Philipps
