Asra onto high-grade rare earths, scandium near Leonora

Asra Minerals’ Yttria prospect within its Mt Stirling project near Leonora in WA’s Goldfields has thrown up traces of highly sought-after “heavy” rare earths in addition to lucrative scandium that stretches from only 2m below surface to the bottom of 40m drill holes. Headline drill numbers include 48m at 90 parts per million scandium oxide from 3m and 7m at 669ppm total rare earths and yttrium oxide (TREYO) and 70ppm scandium oxide from 5m.

The 7m intersection includes a 1m hit going an impressive 2182ppm TREYO from 7m.

Rare earth samples from the 2022 drilling campaign at Mt Stirling are now being assessed and as assay results start to emerge, Asra says it will build its knowledge on the Yttria and neighbouring Wishbone clay-hosted rare earths deposits.

The latest RC results from Yttria appear to be showing valuable heavy rare earth elements (HREE) within ionic regolith-hosted zones and importantly, they are short on the unwelcome elements thorium and uranium.

Notably, the results show high levels of hard-to-find “dysprosium” and “terbium” – known as “heavy rare earths” - both of which are critical elements that make up industrial magnets found in electric vehicle engines.

Asra also reports thick scandium oxide zones up to 48m with high grades up to 174ppm scandium oxide.

Scandium, while not as well-known as some of the other rare earths, nonetheless has achieved crazy prices in the past that blitz the price of gold and most other precious metals.

It is used generally as an additive for aluminium products and can be found in everything from jet fighter planes all the way down to high-end sporting goods.

Asra management regards Mt Stirling’s 160 sq km of tenements as vastly under-explored and believes its rare earths discovery is unique because it is shallow, has a very high ratio (62 per cent) of heavy rare earths. It is also in regolith and not associated with primary rare earths bearing minerals that require high CAPEX for recovery.

A further 160 drillhole assays are still outstanding and drilling to date has only tested 3.5km of the rare earths footprint.

Asra says the Yttria deposit is likely to be associated with a “plume track” believed to exist between Lynas Rare Earths’ Mt Weld carbonatite and Victory Metals’ North Stanmore alkaline intrusion near Cue.

The Mt Weld carbonatite, about 32km south-east of Laverton, contains one of the world’s great rare earths deposits, featuring 18.6 million tonnes going 8.2 per cent TREO for 1.53m tonnes of contained rare earth oxides.

Asra rare earths technical consultant, Professor Ken Collerson, says the significance of the assay results show the majority of Yttria assays are like other regolith-hosted systems seen throughout the highly-prospective region.

Collerson says: “What ASRA has discovered at Yttria is clay-bearing regolith with a low Ce/Ce <1, and a unique and significantly valuable heavy REEs ratio of 62 per cent indicating a high content of valuable dysprosium and terbium.”

He also said the large presence of significantly-elevated scandium oxide now reveals potentially economic levels of scandium are pervasive throughout the entire regolith profile at Yttria.

Asra Minerals Chairman, Paul Summers, said: “Traditionally, scandium production has been limited in line with limited access to this resource but the scandium market is expected to register a CAGR of over 10 per cent by 2027. Growing technology for storing energy and potential applications in the automotive industry will likely create opportunities for the market in the coming years.”

Before being renamed Asra Minerals, the company was known as Torian Resources and had made some significant gold discoveries at Mt Stirling.  While the discovery of rare earths at the project put Asra on the battery metals train,  it is still sitting on some 10 major gold prospects. Last September, the project’s gold mineral resource estimate was ramped up by more than 20 per cent to 152,000 ounces of gold.

The addition of scandium now makes Mt Stirling a triple play and the company is spoilt for choice in terms of which mineral it should focus on.

Interestingly, back in August 2021, Asra bought the 170,000ha Tarmoola pastoral station near Leonora for $4 million. The station came with civil engineering machinery, a 20-person camp and the rights to carbon credits. It also hosts Red 5’s King of the Hills gold mine and Aeris Resources’ zinc-copper-gold-silver Jaguar operations, in addition to a substantial portion of Asra’s own exploration leases.

Not only is Tarmoola significant for the local resources industry, it is also home to livestock and the 700 cattle that came with the purchase of the station provide the mineral explorer with another revenue stream.

Cattle sales last March raised $116,000 for Asra and another $100,000 was injected more recently into its coffers.

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