Can't see this project going anywhere regards REE on these results sorry. Firstly and as I suggested, the champion hole ETH-29 (assayed last to build into suspense and news momentum) was a flyer compared to anything else, unrepeatable even with two close twin holes. TiO2 levels order of magnitude above rest indicated some local lithological variance (dyke?) or lab mix up etc. Scratch that type of assay from the database right now.
Today's release selected 16 of 23 holes that had material kaolin thickness, 7 holes with little kaolin to be assayed later ( green dots inbetween the red). The significant results for 15 of the 23 holes then (including one extra twin around ETH-29) are selectively biased towards thick kaolin and thus over-estimate the thickness and probably grade of clay hosted REE. Early days fair enough, but the assays are further biased by reporting grades for ~35% of the sample weight by assaying the 45micron portion only.
Assuming an average 35% of kaolin rich samples report to <45micron portion which averages 699ppm TREO, the normalised grade of in-situ material might be around 350ppm (assuming 25% of REE reports to >45micron). Beneficiation can make big improvements to head grade and processing costs but it doesn;t come for free. Still got to mine 3x the tonnage and pay to separate <45micron from ore using hydro-cyclones before this beneficiated <45micron ore hits the leach tanks. 700ppm is well below IXR Makuutu's unbenficiated Reserve grade... just doesn;t compare well. IXR could also separate out a <45micron clay fraction if it makes sense financially, and would of course likewise lift the processing head grade proportionally higher again.
IXR are aiming to ramp up into 12Mtpa after a few early years on very high grade starter pit. These are the sort of tonne required to really cover the capex and opex of RE processing with acceptable margins aiming for low enough on the cost curve to get funded. Trouble with treating REE as a bi-product of kaolin production is the tonnage mismatch. Kaolin feed for HPA and other kaolin specific products looks to be an order of magnitude lower than what is required to produce a meaningful amount of RE product at these type of grades (after beneficiation). Meaning, 90% of the RE mining/beneficiating/processing has to stand on it's own two feet as THE sole product covering costs.
Point being, grades look too low to stand alone imo, even with substantial infrastructure carried by a future Kaolin/HPA operation. Still looking for ITM to discover higher grades (double over large area) within otherwise the right looking thickness and depth of clay hosted material.
Good luck
