An Australian heavy rare earths minerals dominant deposit which could be the richest of its type found anywhere in the world.
While ‘rare earths' is one of the sectors attracting huge attention at the moment, not all rare earths are created equal in the eyes of users.
The rare earths complex is generally considered to comprise a suite of some seventeen separate elements, but some of these are much more common in known occurrences than others - mostly at the lighter end of the rare earths spectrum and consequently are in less short supply.
Most deposits which are being investigated at the moment contain good quantities of the lighter rare earth elements like cerium and lanthanum (which could rapidly move into surplus as new projects like Molycorp's Mountain Pass come on stream) but relatively tiny proportions of the in-demand heavy rare earths like europium, terbium, dysprosium and yttrium.
Thus, the Australian xenotime deposits being investigated by junior explorer, Northern Minerals, in which heavy rare earths are dominant are attracting strong interest from investors and prospective end users alike.
The company's find was presented by company President George Bauk, at the Mines & Money event currently taking place in Hong Kong.
Xenotime is described on Wikipedia as follows: "a rare earth phosphate mineral, whose major component is yttrium orthophosphate (YPO4). It forms a solid solution series with chernovite-(YAsO4) and therefore may contain trace impurities of arsenic, as well as silicon dioxide and calcium. The rare earths dysprosium, erbium, terbium, and ytterbium, and metal elements like thorium and uranium (all replacing yttrium) are the expressive secondary components of xenotime. Due to uranium and thorium impurities, some xenotime specimens may be weakly to strongly radioactive. Lithiophyllite, monazite, and purpurite are sometimes grouped with xenotime in the informal "anhydrous phosphates" group. Xenotime is used chiefly as a source of yttrium and heavy lanthanide metals (dysprosium, ytterbium, erbium, and gadolinium)."
In the case of Northern Minerals, its initial find at Browns Range - which straddles the Western Australia and Northern Territory borders - is primarily yttrium (62.15%), dysprosium (9.87%), erbium (6.02%), ytterbium (5.34%),gadolinium (5.32%), light rare earths (5.04%), samarium (1.71%), terbium (1.26%).
But demonstrating the differences in valuations of the various elements, by value the breakdown is dysprosium (54.8%), yttrium 25.3%, ytterbium 25.3% and terbium 10.76% with smaller value percentages of europium, samarium and gadolinium.
The light rare earths component is only 1.95% of the value despite being .just over 5% of the total composition.
Interestingly, prices for yttrium which has been seen as another of the elements being in short supply, have risen sharply recently, but it is still the dysprosium content which could be the main money spinner.
Northern Minerals' second find, the John Galt deposit (obviously named by an Ayn Rand fan), to the northwest of Browns Range, has a very similar make-up, with an even smaller percentage of light rare earths.
All in all Northern Minerals reckons its finds are the most valuable known rare earths deposits in the world in terms of in situ content - the only other one seen as anywhere near as valuable by this measure being China's Jiangxi ionic clay deposits.
It is early days for the company yet and there is obviously much work still to be done to define and prove up the extent of the deposits found to date.
Drilling at Browns Range has been taking place primarily on the Western Australian side of the state boundary as the NT exploration permits have been slower coming through.
The tenor of the rare earths drilled out appears very good and the company plans to come up with its first JORC compliant resource assessment later this year. Power and road infrastructure in the area is good.
Regarding processing, Northern Minerals is looking to produce and sell a heavy rare earths concentrate and to do so the initial costs of a plant to handle 750,000 tonne/year of material is put at only Aus$90 million by independent engineering company, Bateman.
The process being examined utilises paramagnetic separation and simple flotation techniques. Northern Minerals reckons it could be producing at Browns Range by end 2014.
What has to be of particular interest to those looking for rare earths is that a small exploration company has been able to come up with two heavy rare earths dominant prospects in a very short space of time suggesting that there has to be the probability of other deposits of this type being found as rare earths exploration advances.
NTU Price at posting:
27.5¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
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