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Lanthanein awaits heritage tick with drill blitz looming

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Matt BirneySponsored
Lanthanein Resources was encouraged by high grade rare earths rock chip samples from ironstones in WA’s Gascoyne region.
Camera IconLanthanein Resources was encouraged by high grade rare earths rock chip samples from ironstones in WA’s Gascoyne region. Credit: File

Encouraged by a successful maiden rare earths drill program in the neighbourhood, Lanthanein Resources has launched a heritage survey at the company’s Lyons rare earths project in WA’s Gascoyne region. The company is ready to start site works as soon as it gets heritage approvals, with drilling expected to start early next month.

Its RC program is designed to target high-grade rock chips going as high as 8.01 per cent total rare earths oxides, collected from outcropping ironstones over a strike length of more than 2.5km.

The company says its priority drill targets in the outcropping ironstones are analogous to ASX-listed Hastings Technology Metals’ rare earths deposits and Dreadnought Resources’ recent discovery, both live nearby.

Additional permits have been lodged to allow for extended drilling at the project’s ironstones and carbonatite prospects.

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Lyons forms part of Lanthanein’s broader Gascoyne rare earths project with the company’s Edmund project, 25km to the north-west.

The broad project is in a rich rare earths postcode, with Edmund and Lyons straddling either side of the nearly half-a-billion-capped Hastings as it jockeys to develop its Yangibana project — touted as Australia’s next rare earths mine.

In addition, Lyons is just 28km east of Dreadnought’s recent rare earths Yin discovery at its Mangaroon project and only 15km from Dreadnought’s fence line.

Notably, Dreadnought’s share price jumped from $0.05 on July 22 to $0.085 on August 8.

We will get the drilling started as soon as possible pending the final heritage surveys and completion of the site works, with drilling anticipated to start in early September.

Lanthanein Resources Technical Director, Brian Thomas

“Remarkably, similar to the Lyons project, Yin has never been drilled before, highlighting the significant underexplored nature of Yin and Lanthanein’s Lyons and Edmund projects.”

Further rock chip sampling, ground-based geophysics and drilling programs are planned to investigate additional targets not yet followed up. The supplementary targets include thorium and magnetic anomalies throughout Lyons in addition to a major structural feature, the Bald Hill lineament, transecting both the Edmund and Lyons project areas.

The lineament is a major control for rare earths at Hastings’ Yangibana resource of 27.42 million tonnes at 0.97 per cent total rare earths oxides and 0.33 per cent neodymium-praseodymium oxide, representing a very high priority target for Lanthanein.

Neodymium-praseodymium oxide is a key component in neodymium magnets, also known as “NdFeB”, “NIB” or “Neo” magnets.

Lanthanein suggests more than 90 per cent of all electric vehicles will be equipped with such a magnet, with each addition to the clean energy fleet requiring about 1kg of neodymium-praseodymium oxide.

Additionally, when it comes to wind turbines, 200kg of combo-oxide is required per megawatt of generation capacity.

The company believes the proliferation of wind turbines is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17 per cent through to 2025. Similarly, it expects the electric vehicle fleet to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 29 per cent over the next five years.

Given the project’s surrounding potential for rare earths and a market that is set to boil over, it will be interesting to see what is uncovered in Lanthanein’s drill program after it gets the heritage green light.

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

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