Hastings acquires rare earths project
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Hastings Rare Metals has entered into an agreement with Artemis Resources to acquire a 60% interest in the Yangibana rare earth project located in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia.
The deal will result in a boost to Artemis’ coffers to the tune of four million dollars.
“The sale to Hastings Rare Metals confirms Artemis’ targeted focus on gold projects – including our two promising gold projects at Mt Clement and Yandal in Western Australia,” Artemis Resources chief operating officer Guy Robertson said in a company announcement.
“Importantly, the proceeds will bolster the company’s finances, providing it with additional resources to accelerate exploration on these projects with a view to building our gold inventory through exploration and acquisitions.”
Announcing the deal Hastings said it plans to evaluate the project in order to determine its potential in size and to establish JORC-compliant resources.
The company also intends undertaking metallurgical test work to identify the best processing route for the Yangibana project material.
Consideration for the acquisition will be in the form of an initial payment of one million dollars on settlement followed by another one million dollars on or before 31 October 2011.
The company said these se payments are expected to be made from existing cash reserves.
A Milestone Payment of two million dollars is also payable if and when Hastings completes a Feasibility Study on the project and obtains a formal offer for project financing.
The Yangibana rare earth project is made up of six granted Exploration Licences covering 68 sub-blocks and approximately 203 square kilometres.
“Nine individual occurrences of rare earth elements (REE) are known to occur within the Project area including Yangibana, Yangibana North, Yangibana South, Lions Ear, Gossan, Hook, Hook South, Kanes Gossan and Tongue,” Hastings said in an its announcement.
“The tenements cover the majority of the known REE occurrences in the region characterised as belonging to the carbonatite dyke intrusive style of rare earth occurrences.
“The dykes occur as strong linear iron rich features generally striking in an east west orientation and semi concordant to regional magnetic trends.
“The REE mineralisation is hosted by a long sinuous ironstone gossan.”
Historic exploration at Yangibana includes the drilling of 80 RC holes for 3500 metres which was carried out by Challenger Mining Corporation in 1988.
Better intersections returned from this drilling were:
4.5m at 2.22% total rare earth oxides (TREO) from Yangibana North,
3.5m of 3.21% TREO from Hook,
4.6m at 1.83% TREO from Lion’s Ear,
7.1m at 1.43% TREO from Kane’s Gossan, and
6.0m at 1.81% TREO from Bald Hill.
A more recent rock chip sampling expedition carried out over 2007-2008 collected over fifty rock chip samples over only two kilometres of the project’s seven kilometre strike length returing average results of 2.84% TREO.
The collection included one sample of 19.44% TREO, which Hastings considers to be an excellent guide for undertaking further exploration.