FYI from St***headKAIROS MINERALS (ASX:KAI)The former gold...

FYI from St***head

KAIROS MINERALS (ASX:KAI)

The former gold explorer reckons it has a gamechanger on its hands at Black Cat, a clay hosted rare earths discovery 110km from Lynas’ (ASX:LYC) new Kalgoorlie processing plant in WA.

While clay deposits projects have advantages over their hard rock counterparts – a higher proportion of magnet REEs, lower exploration, mining and processing costs – they are usually far lower grade.

Not in this case.

KAI says this thing has genuine scale with hits like 28m @ 3854ppm TREO from 32m, which includes 4m @ 23,000pmm (2.3%) TREO.

More than 90% of holes testing for rare earths have hit significant mineralisation, it says.

All-important metallurgical test work is underway.

“These will tell us, among other factors, whether the material could be upgraded through a simple beneficiation [removing waste to upgrade ore] process for sale to a rare earths processor,” KAI managing director Pete Turner says.

The best clay deposits also have a decent ionic component, which means REEs can be easily, quickly, and cheaply ‘leached’ in a salt solution.

Meanwhile, the company is looking to sell its 1.6Moz Mt York gold project in the Pilbara, with discussions underway with third parties “about potential corporate transactions”.

KAI was cashed up with $6.4m in the bank at the end of December.