Great work
@salpetie as usual, one of the few unfortunately who adds real value to HC threads with research and effort, as usual. Unsurprisingly I enjoy long detailed posts, especially considered with healthy scepticism. If you don't mind I'll add my thoughts to your points.
"Initially the drilling is starting at south Yin." "a few holes for scoping purposes - 6 comes to mind" "After this the current single RC rig will move up to Yin for infill drilling for MRE update" "Initial plans mentioned included going from Yin infill up to C1-5 area. and then down to C6. If this is what happens then maybe a little while for C6 drilling but not too far off."From that monatge of comments, testing the 43kms of ironstone extensions is the lowest priority outside just enough to see if the last two lines southern end of Yin is the beginning of a new thickening or just a small pod. Entirely sensible if one was not confident of a material extension to the ironstone lode MRE along strike. HAS exploration shows the ironstones can develop into only small pods along extensive strike as often as they develop large thickening of carbonatite/ironstone alteration. for 500m at the north end of Yin MRE there isn't even a small pod thickening. That is the exploration risk I speak of to the ET along strike of Yin, Sabre and Y8. Sometimes actions speak much louder than words...
"DRE may become miners but definitely not chemists!"... no, no they're not when you check the facts against their claims. At one point Dean says in the presso "There are no other RE projects in the world that come close to the metallurgical recoveries as the Gifford Creek carbonatite as seen at Hastings and here as well"... simply untrue. Mineral sand projects (majority or minority RE revenue driven) deliver a typical 60% TREO, very clean mon-con with very high recoveries. It helps when all the monazite grains has already been separated, rounded into free -flowing ore by nature. It's so common the price of Monazite 60% TREO conc is quoted in China on a daily basis.
"early mining and producing a concentrate is something that is being considered" "concentrate would have multiple markets in WA where the more complex alchemy of rare earth metals could be expanded. Iluka; LYC Kal: Exmouth HAS? all options.The cost would not be small $100M (?mentioned) but less than HAS set up."I was half way through working up the HAS DFS spreadsheet into a bene conc only product evaluation before getting caught up in DRE banter. An obvious lower capex option (stage 1 only or LOM), but way, way higher than $100M capex, but off-take at the right price is still a problem. ILU's Eneabba plant has roughly 34ktpa of spare capacity outside Eneabba stockpile feed, half of that planned to be taken up by ILU Wimmera min sand deposit in two stage development over this decade. Mangaroon on a 1.2Mtpa plant @ 1.2% TREO and 92% recovery into a 40% TREO mon-conc would produce 33,000t of concentrate.... see the problem.
Only half that could 33ktpa could be taken by ILU, except by the time DRE gets to the mining stage in 5 years time there's every chance that gap has already been filled by others. Doubt LYC are waiting around years to take DRE conc on a sweetheart deal either. I like the potential for a mon-con only plan but there is devil in the detail. My gut feeling is HAS hydromet is the best if not only way to max margins with lowest risk off-take, but need to work out the situation to say with any confidence.
"Bresnahan for the conceptual and practical side with some input from the Browns Range team on unconformity style a la Wolverine etc." "Apparently samples in the 0.1-0.3% TREO range would likely to have be enough for initial proof of concept but 1%+ definitely was"
I have to call out Dean here again sorry. In the presso regards Bresnahan he says "we got rocks chips exact same grade as Wolverine" which is simply untrue. Wolverine (Browns Range deposit) is 89% HREE, almost all xenotime, with a Dy to Nd ration of 4:1 in the MRE (6:1 in early rock chip samples 2010).
Bresnahan max sample 25% HREE, with an Nd dominant assemblage and Dy:Nd ration of 0.1:1 over the only two anomalous samples. Wolverine not just a lot more HREE, it's nearly all xenotime with ~40 times more Dy:Nd than Bresnahan. As we all know DyTb is the money shot, aprox 7 time value than NdPr on a weighted average basis comp (and why ILU is chasing an off-take with NTU on Wolverine).
Whether he's not a details guy, or just unfortunate exaggeration from over-excitement during the presso I don't know. I'm not a fan of misleading management spin, it grates and certainly slaps me in the face. I don;t like over-cooked sales pitches. I see the world differently, there's no sugar coating it, and bulls on this thread will hate me for bringing it up. That's just how HC is unfortunately...
Keep up the good work. GLTAH
(20min delay)