Home
Search

Ardea confirms significant rare earths at key nickel project

Headshot of Matt Birney
Matt BirneySponsored
Ardea Resources has returned significant rare earth results from sterilisation drilling at its Kalgoorlie nickel project.
Camera IconArdea Resources has returned significant rare earth results from sterilisation drilling at its Kalgoorlie nickel project. Credit: File

Ardea Resources has confirmed Pamela Jean East as the preferred site to set up production infrastructure for its Kalgoorlie nickel project after discovering rare earths at its alternative option Goongarrie West.

The company recently completed sterilisation drilling near a variety of proposed production pit locations in order to finalise the site layout for the general arrangement plan for the project including its Goongarrie Hub in the Goldfields region of WA.

Sterilisation drilling tests areas of a mine site are used to confirm there are no additional resources in locations where infrastructure is likely to be built.

However, the latest results from three holes drilled at the Goongarrie West site confirmed significant total rare earth oxides, or “TREO” with highlights showing 7m at 3506 parts-per-million TREO from 64m in the first hole, 12m going 2487ppm TREO from 40m in the second hole and 4m reading 1181ppm TREO from 56m in the third.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

The company says the assays are considered significant intercepts based on consistent mineralisation occurring in 1km spaced reconnaissance drill holes. The results also indicate the area is an ionic absorption clay rare earth occurrence and preclude Goongarrie West as an infrastructure site option.

With the high-grade TREO results returned for the three holes at Goongarrie West, it has been an easy decision to instruct the Consulting Engineer to site the key production infrastructure at Pamela Jean East.

Ardea Resources Managing Director, Andrew Penkethman

Air-core sterilisation drilling was conducted across the proposed Goongarrie Hub process plant area in September last year for a total of 76 holes over 2047m. The work is part of a larger pre-feasibility study aimed at producing nickel and cobalt products for the lithium-ion battery sector using material sourced from the Goongarrie component of the company’s world-class resource of 830 million tonnes going 0.71 per cent nickel and 0.05 per cent cobalt.

The company believes its proposed operation contains the largest nickel-cobalt asset in the developed world. According to the Geological Survey of WA, when it comes to contained nickel, Ardea’s project is number one in WA with 5.8 million tonnes of contained nickel.

Last year Ardea declared the Goongarrie Hub component of the project housed a mineral resource estimate of 561 million tonnes at 0.68 per cent nickel and 0.044 per cent cobalt. It also contains a high-grade component of 78.3 million tonnes going 1.00 per cent nickel and 0.069 per cent cobalt for 784,000 tonnes of nickel and 54,300 tonnes of cobalt contained.

Ardea says it has been testing for rare earths at the project since 2017 that included re-assaying drill samples for multiple elements in addition to the prominent nickel and cobalt in the area. Results from the remaining assays from the sterilisation drilling are still pending.

Whilst nickel and cobalt are the primary focus for Ardea at the Kalgoorlie nickel project, the confirmation of clay-hosted mineralisation shows the potential for company to develop rare earths as a by-product once the pre-feasibility study is complete.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au

Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.

Sign up for our emails