What part of my previous post is actually incorrect.
Look at the HREO content as a percentage of the TREO... what is it 5-10%? And then the LREO well Nd/Pr are the only 2 worth anything and these results have a really high Ce/Le content which are worthless.
i mean the Ce is actually higher but reached the "reporting limits" lol so if the TREO was high enough they just capped the Ce content post aqua regia leach at 614.2ppm. The result don't have a great basket composition. The recoveries are typically linear across the elements. It's generally typical to see HREO recovery at higher rates that the LREO. That's generally to do with how they're bonded and HREO bonds are weaker. Of course if you're leach with acid that strong you don't actually get to understand where the exchangeable bonds are.
View attachment 4611646Also, whilst you're harping on about recoveries again despite myself not mention recoveries in that post. But if you want to understand why those recoveries are a comparison test and tell you nothing about whether its a viable extraction method refer to Post #:
63174292 which you've notable failed to address any of that post and now presenting sub-economic REO hits from surface that would barely make it into a feasibility study if the material had large ionic portion - which again it's not proven to be... but i digress.
![](https://hotcopper.com.au/attachments/ammonia-sulphate-jpg.3327095/)
I wonder why none of the advanced and proven ionic absorbed deposits haven't selected this ground breaking tech "weak aqua regia" as the preferred TREO method when the recoveries are so awesome?!?! Actually i don't wonder, but you should - it's because
a) it's not an economic method to leach with on scale and
b) you need to be able to precipitate the REO and produce a 95% concentrate (950,000ppm)
What you've got is a chunk of dirt at 1000ppm (from the assay sample (using lithium borate fusion).
you've then hit that 1000ppm with face melting acid aka (weak aqua regia) refer to
63174292 and now you're end product with "80% recoveries" and guess what the grade is 800ppm.
Ok let's unpack that.
View attachment 461150880% recoveries for IXR's basket so 672ppm becomes 537ppm. So to present that in a p/kg figure 537/672000 becomes 0.8/1000.
This what your end product would sell for with 80% recoveries and still at 800ppm post processing. 3c per kg. That's after you spend a bomb on the acid.
You need to concentrate the product leach a bulk sample stuff at 1000ppm and concentrate the TREO to around 900,000ppm = 90% and doing so cost effectively.
Notice the La/Ce content in the head grade as a percentage and then that it recovers much worse that the others. mean the end concentrate basket is diluted with low value crap. This is a good outcome if the low value elements go to tailings because you're end concentrate is made up of better stuff and therefore worth more on a p/kg basis.
View attachment 4611523IXR was able to produce a 92%+ concentrate which is 920,000ppm using salt leach. With some acid dosing they were able to lift the overall recovery of the valuable elements to ~ 65% under a commercially viable method.
Recoveries mean jack shight if you're product is a lower grade after processing it.
Who would process gold at 10g/t and go "well sir we just spent 100M annually a year running the plant and i'm proud to report we achieved 90% recoveries!."
"Excellent work! and what is the grade of our saleable product - i'm imagine its a nice high grade concentrate"
"Well we hit it with weak aqua regia and now its 9g/t."
"So wait? we spent all that money processing our product and decreased its grade... it's now worth less than what it was when we first dug it out the ground?!"
I don't go to other threads unless tagged as i don't get any enjoyment slamming on stocks people hold - but occasionally we are gifted when others try to flex their stock on another thread and it only then highlights all the prevailing issues/gaps/misinformation and probably does more harm than good.
I've read a couple posts on those threads tagging IXR in it because you're trying to try draw that bow. There's only 4 stocks which have proven they can recover their REO with a salt leach. I hold 2. This is generally the first step required to know whether it will in fact be able to likely beneficiate to a higher required concentrate and be able to do so cost effectively.
In short, the results of DM1 are ok in terms of thickness to depth.
The overall grades are okay.
The overall grade once you omit Ce/La are poor.
The basket composition is very poor.
Will it be economic if a large portion of the material is ionic maybe. (just like the 20 others trying)
Will it be economic if a large portion isn't ionic. No.
They'll need 100mt-200mt resource @ 500ppm-1000ppm and similar depths, grades, thickness.
They'll also need to prove they can leach and precipitate it to a 90%+ concentrate using economical viable methods.
is it possible? Yes
is it likely? No
i've stuck to companies performing the low ph tests early on in the piece. Have no desire for companies to burn millions on drill programs and waste 12 months before doing a composite sample leach and met work which would have otherwise told you hey you've got background REO value in clay - no/low portion is ionic and therefore highly unlikely to ever be valuable.
here's an except from a report on a project called splinter which is now "rebranded" OD6. Another prospective ionic clay project because there's clay and there REO. What OD6 will bury is this excerpt which was done by the private company that owned the project ages ago. I dug this up in July of 2021 when i was looking to potentially vend out the project personally and was also assessing the lithology in the area.
What will OD6 do now? Well they ain't gonna be doing any low pH leach tests because they're likely going to turn up donuts. maybe a nice 10,000m to 20,000m drill campaign following by some weak aqua regia test will kick the can down the road for 12 months or so. Also note a more technical aspect relating to the salt in the host rock in point 3. This decreases the effect a salt leach. additionally worth looking at the calcium content of the host rock. This if present (like a few of the ionic projects and other non-ionic project have found, is that it requires heavy acid dosing and the acid consumption is quite high to compensate the reaction with the calcium.
View attachment 4611766Anyways, good luck with that project maybe ask the doc when/if they're going to actually test if the REO is physio-absorped and in exchangeable phase. It's a 2hr test. Not hard, not expensive. If they prove that even 10-20% of the material is present in that form not only will i commend - but i'll invest. my opinions and research isn't static - but right now it's got the same RvR as 95% of the other hopefuls. that is doing everything they can to avoid a leach test using a ph between 4-5 because they're afraid the results will be shight and the punter will see 10-20% recoveries and panic. Reality is 10% recoveries using salt (ph4) is much much much much favourable in terms of it being viable than "80% recovery" using weak aqua regia (ph0-1).
back to the drawing board.
SF2TH