Black Fire Minerals eyes REE project
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Diversified Perth-based resources house Black Fire Minerals has completed a due diligence program and has subsequently entered into an Option to Purchase Agreement to acquire a 70% equity interest in the 3,600 square kilometres Longonjo rare earth project located in central Angola.
Under the agreement, Black Fire has made a A$100,000 option payment to Australian company, Sable Minerals for an exclusive 18 month option to acquire a 70% equity interest in the Longonjo project.
Sable’s interest in the Longonjo Project is held via a joint venture agreement with Angolan private company, Discovery Group, which holds title to the project.
Under this agreement Sable have a 70% equity interest and are project managers while Discovery Group holds a 30% equity interest and is being free carried to a decision to undertake a Bankable Feasibility Study.
Part of the due diligence program included the company receiving highly encouraging rare earth element (REE) assay results from confirmatory sampling programs.
“We are very pleased to have successfully completed due diligence and committed to the Option to Purchase Agreement to acquire the Longonjo REE Project in Angola. Black Fire Minerals acting chairman Anthony Baillieu said in the announcement.
“As confirmed by the highly encouraging results returned from the rock chip, trench and pitting geochemical programs, Longonjo represents an extraordinarily exciting early stage REE project that the Company is intending to advance as quickly as possible through aggressive drilling programs planned to commence in July.”
Black Fire’s primary target at Longonjo is the Longonjo Carbonatite REE prospect, which the company says comprises a large rare earth element, niobium and phosphate soil geochemical anomaly.
This anomaly is currently at 0.5% cerium and is in excess of 2km x 1.5km in dimension and is open to the southeast.
As part of the due diligence process, Black Fire conducted an 88 sample trenching, pitting and rock chip geochemical sampling program across this prospect which has returned highly encouraging results including:
– 17m at 3.72% total rare earth oxide, 4.3% phosphate and 0.29% niobium in Trench 1;
– 19m at 3.54% total rare earth oxide, 4.3% phosphate and 0.30% niobium in Trench 2;
– 16m at 1.60% total rare earth oxide, 6.6% phosphate and 0.33% niobium in Outcrop Channel 1.
The company also received a best bedrock pit sample result of 18.91% total rare earth oxide, 11.54% phosphate and 0.32% niobium in Pit 6, with Pit 4 returning 18.06% total rare earth oxide, 7.77% phosphate and 0.8% niobium.
“Although the assay results are dominated by Light REE’s (LREE) the tenor of the results are highly significant with the whole 88 samples averaging 1.5% cerium oxide (peak 9.48%), 0.7% lanthanum oxide (peak 5.17%), 0.6% neodymium oxide (peak 2.77%), 0.2% praseodymium oxide (peak 0.87%) and 0.1% samarium oxide (peak 0.24%),” Black Fire said in its announcement.
The Longonjo project area is close to infrastructure including the regional city of Huambo and road networks as well as the recently recommissioned railway to the port city of Benguela which passes less than 3km from the Longonjo Carbonatite.
In addition to the Longonjo REE Prospect, copper‐gold‐uranium‐iron mineralisation and historical mine workings have been discovered at the
Cassenha Hill prospect also located within the project.