HAVILAH RESOURCES LIMITED Most historic exploration in the Curnamona Craton has been directed at base metal, uranium and gold mineralisation, meaning that REE were not routinely assayed. Given the current strategic importance of REE, study of the REE distribution and grade across Havilah's deposits and prospects is warranted due to the potential opportunity to enhance the deposit and/or project economics.
These four REE make up approximately 80% of the potential value of REE in the two drill samples, which are from the soft clayey saprolite gold ore at West Kalkaroo. The levels of these REE in the underlying copper ore types (e.g. native copper, chalcocite and chalcopyrite) is yet to be determined, although it is noted that previous limited La assay values were generally elevated.
Composites of eleven drill samples also recently re-assayed from two Havilah reverse circulation drillholes at the Croziers copper prospect returned similarly elevated REE, although with higher relative proportions of the light-REE, namely La and Ce. REE analyses reported earlier by
The REE re-assaying reported here was prompted by Havilah's new management team's recent technical review of limited REE data that was available from earlier MMG joint venture diamond drillholes on several Havilah prospects, along with compilation of La and Nd data from a limited number of Havilah drillholes. MMG reported some elevated REE results from both the Eurinilla and Birksgate prospect areas, generally associated with copper-gold mineralisation. While the available limited REE results are promising, considerably more exploration drilling and assaying is required to determine the full extent of REE mineralisation associated with the stratabound replacement and vein style copper-gold mineralisation across Havilah's mineral tenements in the Curnamona Craton.
This will be in addition to milestone completion of the updated Kalkaroo project pre-feasibility study, which is currently well advanced. The value upside for Havilah is that if REE can be economically recovered in a mineral concentrate as a by-product of the standard copper and gold recovery processes it potentially provides a further revenue stream for the Kalkaroo copper-gold project.
Commenting on the REE re-assaying Havilah's Technical Director, Dr
About Rare Earth Elements
REE are a related group of 16 elements (lanthanides plus Yttrium) that are not particularly rare and are typically widely dispersed in the earth's crust. However, there are limited minerals containing appreciable levels of REE and they tend to only form economic concentrations under rather uncommon geological conditions. For this reason REE are currently strategic and critical minerals for industry. The lanthanide series of elements can be further subdivided into light-REE and heavy-REE. Light-REE are generally more abundant, and less valuable than the heavy-REE.
REE have a wide variety of important and often energy saving modern age usages because of their spectrum of slightly varying chemical behaviours. For example, modern brushless electric motors as used in power tools and many electric vehicles rely on powerful new generation magnets that use Nd, Dy, Pr, Tb compounds as vital components. Some of the many other uses of REE are summarised in the diagram below.
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