BRE 2.24% $3.19 brazilian rare earths limited

This post is actually factually inaccurate and misleading from...

  1. 3,914 Posts.
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    This post is actually factually inaccurate and misleading from start to finish IMHO.

    1) 1000ppm = 0.1%.

    2) MEI head grade at 3000ppm (0.3%) is over 3 times the average grade of most IAC deposits in china which produce 90%+ of the world HREO (including the IAC grades here).

    Comparing IAC head grades to hard rock head grades is one of the more novice things to do.
    If intentional it's both nefarious and misleading.

    Your comments regarding Lynas are equally obscure. Whilst the mineral resource (key word resource) is 5.2% the actual economic mineral reserves (key word reserve) (which is the mineable profitable part) is actually 8% TREO.

    lynas resources.PNG

    Take particular note to the cut-off grade of 4% on the reserves. Essentially this means that Lynas does not even bother processing grades below 4%. Noting LYC is a hard-rock carbonatite project.


    lynas reserves.PNG

    LYC's cut-off grade is 4 times higher than the Monte Altos Monazite sands deposit. Noting that Carbonatite and monazite aren't the same - but you can appreciate why linearly and arbitrarily comparing REO projects of different host rocks is pretty useless.

    Furthermore back to the IAC grades here are equally average in comparison to the stocks you're commenting. Without the Monazite sand grade of 10000ppm lumped in you actually only have a 1000ppm IAC projects. None of these are economical at todays prices. I have even stated that on stocks i hold with grades at 1000ppm. (luckily they have other options)
    BRE JORC.PNG

    As for the companies 'corestones' commentary which is somewhat of an industry first to market something like that is actually quite misleading.

    A corestone, is effectively an overgrown rock chip. A boulder if you will. Reporting these average grade of 'corestones' seems to want to paint a picture that BRE has this extremely high grade resource - but they don't. The corestones are just discrete boulders within and overall average grade monazite sand mineralisation.

    This is evidenced as such in their presentation, albeit very obscurely, so as to not indicate quite rightly that the drill cores are mostly 1000ppm-10000ppm (refer to the legend on the right hand side) and actually quite a lot under below 500ppm which is essentially trash for monazite let alone IAC.
    BRE corestones misleading.PNG
    BRE misleading.PNG

    If you view the above you get the idea. The screenshot to the right is a decent 4m intercept. It's just a shame that this is just directly into 1 rock in 1 discrete area and yet still the overall JORC grade for the entire project and in the remainder of the drill core (outside the corestone) remains at 10000ppm.

    BRE does have an extremely large landholding and i expect they can grow their resources many times over. They may even discover even better parts/areas over time as well. The 1% Monazite may actually not be a bad project in it's own right. The varying geology will be interesting to see how that navigated from a process circuit point of view. It's like mineral sand, with boulders of hard rock, with area's of ionic clay. I've not really seen that before so the process circuit will be... interesting. (Whether that means complex/expensive we will see.

    The current discoveries are actual quite low in terms of the NdPr content in terms of percentage. With most sitting 22-24% NdPr and BRE only 18.8% so definitely not as good as typical.

    monazite deposit ndpr.PNG


    Monazite fairly well associated with complex process circuitry as it is, and referring to the varying geology here may add to that. I mean if they just target a monazite concentrate then you can bypass the rest but you can see see below going beyond that point to remove the Th and U (deleterious/radioactive material) from the concentrate it's a pretty convoluted process.

    monazite concentrate complex.PNG

    Eneabba (iluka) may be of interest although they are processing a monazite sand by-product which was considered waste (from the mineral sands process) historically but now it's effectively a monazite sand REO deposit.

    Anyways, probably enough information and brain dumps for now - but in short;

    -The IAC is below what is viable at current REO pricing. (IMO and i hold a IAC clay with 1000ppm or less)
    -The deposit is not 5-6 times higher than lynas. It has boulders like large rocks which are high grade inside of an overall 1000-10000ppm intercept in sand.
    -The NdPr is low for a monazite project
    -The tenements are very large, and resource potential very large. (Jury out on how much of it is viable, certainly not any of the 1000ppm stuff).
    -Best pathway to success is on the monazite sand part to produce a monazite concentrate. They will need to navigate the complexities of monazite processing (inclusive of U/Th - which can be managed if your margin is going enough). Will need to outweigh what will like be significant capex.

    P.S the best operating REO asset in the world is Bayan Obo which accounts for ~40-50% of REO reserves and production.

    SF2TH
 
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