Diversified minerals explorer Venture Minerals is keen to get its drill bits spinning in search of rare earth elements in WA after adding two new Mid West projects to its portfolio and identifying two new targets at its existing Kulin deposit, south east of Perth.
Venture has developed a strategy to expand the company’s exposure in the rare earths space with a particular bias for clay-hosted REE mineralisation.
The West Perth-based company’s two new acquisitions have been respectively dubbed the Brothers and Bandy projects. Brothers comprises a 511-square-kilometre tenement package that sits adjacent to Venture’s existing Vulcan rare earths prospect, equidistant between the Mid West towns of Mullewa and Mount Magnet.
Vulcan is a high-grade rare earths target that has produced several results of more than 1 per cent total rare earth oxide (TREO), right up to 12.5 per cent TREO. Venture says Brothers has returned a high-grade seven-element rare earths laterite soil result of 1864 parts per million. It is also situated close to an historic drill hole that intersects 4 metres at 2103ppm TREO within clay.
Bandy comprises 809sq km of land about 250km to Mount Magnet’s south-east. According to State Government dataset, it boasts combined rare earths laterite results up to 2704ppm – which Venture says is the highest value recorded from government sampling in the area.
The new acquisitions add to the company’s existing six projects, half of which are in Tasmania and includes its flagship tin-tungsten Mount Lindsay project. The other half are in WA, including its North West nickel-copper-PGE project that it shares with Chalice Mining in a joint venture.
Rare earths mineralisation has previously been discovered immediately adjacent to tin zones at Mount Lindsay. The company has also identified coincident laterite rare earths lanthanum and cerium results in addition to conductivity anomalies at its nickel-copper-PGE-gold Kulin project.
The anomalies were picked up from a recently-completed 1365 line-kilometre airborne electromagnetic survey and management says it now considers the clay-hosted rare earths targets as a high priority that warrant follow-up drill testing at the earliest opportunity.
Venture Minerals managing director Andrew Radonjic said: “The addition of four new clay-hosted REE targets in Western Australia demonstrates the Company’s focused approach to building a portfolio of high-quality REE projects. The discovery of new rare earth projects in Australia is critical, as we manage the threat of China limiting supply to the rest of the world. Prior to the acquisition and identification of these new REE targets, Venture had already discovered the very high grade and soon-to-be-drilled Vulcan REE target in WA, as well as REE targets at both Cruncher and Reward within the Mount Lindsay Project.”
Venture’s goal is to build a quality portfolio of projects that gives shareholders valuable exposure to the important and fast-growing rare earths sector.
The company says planning is well advanced for follow-up drilling programs on both of its new targets in addition to the recently-discovered high-grade rare earths target at its Vulcan prospect, which sits within its Golden Grove North project.
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By Mark Irving
