White Cliff targets core assets after WA rare earths project sale

Following rolling success across its reinvigorated battery metals and rare earths-focused portfolio, White Cliff Minerals has offloaded its non-core Gardener Dome rare earths project in WA to ASX-listed explorer Black Cat Syndicate. The transaction will see the company pocket a non-refundable deposit of $5,000, followed by $45,000 in cash and $150,000 worth of fully paid ordinary shares in Black Cat upon the deal's completion.

The shares will be issued based on a price of 32c each or the 10-day volume-weighted average price prior to execution of the agreement. The company says the stock will be placed in a voluntary escrow until 30 April 2023 ahead of the deal’s conclusion.

White Cliff envisions the sale to be wrapped up by mid-December and plans to re-focus its attention towards its Yinetharra, Hines Hill, Diemals and recently acquired Lake Tay projects which are prospective for lithium and rare earths.

News of the sale follows a recent rock chip sampling program at the Yinnetharra project in the Gascoyne region of WA which returned results of up to 924 parts per million total rare earth oxides, or “TREO”.

Yinnetharra is situated in a bustling part of town and is a mere 85km from Hastings Rare Earths’ renowned Yangibana project that boasts a JORC-compliant resource of 21 million tonnes going 1.17 per cent TREO.

Notably, Yangibana’s resources offer anomalous concentrations of neodymium and praseodymium oxides that are a lucrative rare earth predominantly used to construct permanent magnets for the motors of electric vehicles.

White Cliff is also ramping up exploration at its Hines Hill rare earths project about 200km from Perth after recently submitting a program of work to the Department of Mines.

The company believes the launch of a maiden 100-hole, 3000m air core campaign at Hines Hill is now imminent with the program tipped to follow up on some encouraging rare earth sniffs acquired in an April sampling campaign.

The April program returned grades as high as 550 parts per million TREO along with almost half a dozen going ppm TREO.

Management argues the anomalous specimens are correlated to a pair of magnetic features at Hines Hill interpreted to be carbonatite intrusives – geological features earmarked as key sources of rare earths.

Whilst works progress at Hines Hill the explorer is also eyeing programs at its Diemals lithium and rare earths play east of Perth.

The area around Diemals was once thought to be solely prospective for nickel, copper and gold mineralisation however recent analysis suggests the zone could host lithium and rare earths.

White Cliff recently completed a 1000-piece soil sampling program at Diemals and also has its newly acquired Lake Tay rare earths project about 120km south-west of Norseman in WA in its stable.

The explorer says the under-explored asset is prospective for ionic clay-hosted rare earth deposits which offer cheaper mining and processing over hard rock-style projects.

The company is currently gearing up to complete a field mapping and sampling program at the site.

With the sale of a non-core asset soon to be completed, White Cliff is seemingly transforming itself into a leaner operation focused on developing its WA-based new energy plays.

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