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Hastings Rare Metals: Yangibana promising for critical rare earth oxides 0 comments



Hastings Rare Metals’ (ASX: HAS) 60%-owned Yangibana Project is showing potential for a high neodymium oxide resource with assays from a recent sampling program confirming that neodymium accounts for about 25% of the total rare earth oxides found.

The highest grade returned from 38 samples was 12.8% total rare earth oxides including 2.29% critical rare earth oxides, of which the neodymium oxide content was 2.19%.

Importantly, this could mean a high neodymium oxide resource that may complement the company’s other project, Hastings, which shows high grades of the critical rare earth oxides dysprosium oxide and yttrium oxide.

Neodymium is a key metal in industrial high strength magnets used in hybrid motor vehicles and wind turbines.

Neodymium oxide is widely considered one of the three rare earth oxides with critical supply shortages in the foreseeable future by industry experts. Prices have risen from US$14 per kilo in 2009 to US$317 per kilo in June 2011.

At least nine rare earth prospects have been drilled at Yangibana and there is over 7 kilometres of largely under explored known strike length.

Previous rock chip samples have returned high grades of up to 19.44% of total rare earth oxides and an extremely high proportion of neodymium oxide values have been confirmed – up to nearly 40% in some samples.

Due to access difficulties to the eastern portion of the tenements, the sampling program was confined to the Yangibana North, Gossan and Lion’s Ear prospects on the main northern zone of mineralisation, and the Yangibana, Yangibana South and Tongue prospects to the south.

Hastings is considering a major reverse circulation drilling program to further define the previously drilled ironstone targets and establish a JORC Resource in 2012.

In the meantime, the company will undertake a detailed mapping and sampling program to better define the known targets but also to identify and sample other prospective lenses of ironstone that lie adjacent to the main zones.

If these smaller lenses carry significant mineralisation they could add to the economic potential of the project as a whole.

The drilling program will initially test the northern line of prospects between Yangibana North Zone 3 and the eastern extension of Kane’s Gossan.

This target alone has a combined strike length of around 7.8 kilometres of which only 2.2 kilometres has been tested by historical drilling.

Yangibana North Zones 3 and 4 are particularly encouraging as the previous drilling has shown that the mineralised body is quite shallow-dipping to the south, and is amenable to simple grid-based drilling.

The grades returned by the recent sampling at Gossan and The Lion’s Ear prospect also provide encouragement for further drilling. Particularly at The Lion’s Ear, mapping will be required to assist drillhole planning.

Meanwhile, Hastings has also received the final assays from its drilling program at the Hastings Rare Metals Project near Halls Creek in the east Kimberley region.

The overall drilling program was completed successfully with 51 holes collared, with one hole abandoned, two holes failing to intersect mineralisation, and two holes intersecting only weak mineralisation.

The 2011 drilling campaign has identified resources of 36 million tonnes with geological inference of considerably more.


http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/485861-proactive-investor/235361-hastings-rare-metals-yangibana-promising-for-critical-rare-earth-oxides