Peak Resources' Ngualla Rare Earth Project is centered on the Ngualla Carbonatite in southern Tanzania, 147 kilometers from the city of Mbeya on the edge of the East African Rift Valley. The weathered Bastnaesite Zone that is the target for development occurs as a thick blanket of high-grade rare earth mineralization from the surface on Ngualla Hill. Rare earths are contained within the mineral bastnaesite within a weathered host rock that contains very low levels of phosphate, carbonate, uranium, and thorium compared to other rare earth deposits. This makes it easy-to-mine by low strip ratio open pit techniques and subsequently upgraded to a high grade processed concentrate through a multi-stage processing plant on site.
The Total All Resources Mineral Resource estimate for the Ngualla Project above a 1% REO cut-off is 214.4 million tonnes at 2.15% REO, for 4,620,000 tonnes of contained REO. Included in this Mineral Resource is the Weathered Bastnaesite Zone Mineral Resource, the measured and indicated portions of which form the basis of the Ore Reserve estimate.
At a 1% REO lower grade cut-off the Mineral Resource estimate for the Weathered Bastnaesite Zone is 21.3 million tonnes at 4.75% REO, for 1,010,000 tonnes of contained REO. Details of the Mineral Resource estimate are contained within the ASX Announcement “Higher grade Resource for Ngualla nearly 1 million tonnes REO” as of 22 February 2016.
The Ore Reserve estimate for the Ngualla Project is 18.5 million tonnes at 4.80% REO for 887,000 tonnes of contained REO. ASX Announcement “Ngualla Rare Earth Project – Updated Ore Reserve” as of 12 April 2017 provides further details and assumptions. The Ore Reserve represents just 22% of the Total All Resources Mineral Resource but is sufficient to support a mine life of 26 years.
The Company plans to export approximately 32,700 tonnes per annum of rare earth concentrate grading 45% REO from Tanzania to the UK refinery.Ngualla is also host to widespread, high grade niobium-tantalum, phosphate, fluorspar and barite mineralization. These additional commodities are at an early stage of evaluation and represent potential upside opportunities for additional products from the project.
Montero Mining & Exploration Ltd's Wigu Hill Property is a large, REE enriched carbonatite with dolomitic vein system which cut into Precambrian gneisses. The deposit type would be best described as a high level, carbonatite hosted REE dike deposit. The principally coarse-grained carbonatite dikes largely contain dolomite, bastnaesite, and quartz.
The Wigu Hill Rare Earth Element (“REE”) Project is a light rare earth element deposit and a large carbonite complex with bastnaesite mineralization. The license area covers 142km2. Initial grab samples yielded results as high as 27.25% TREO. Montero released an initial NI 43-101 Inferred resource estimate of 3.3Mt at 2.6% LREO5 including 510K @ 4.4% LREO5 on 2 of 10 possible drill targets. Further exploration drilling to add to the current resource is underway.
Montero revised a portion of its initial NI 43-101 compliant Inferred Mineral Resource estimate of 3.3M tonnes at 2.6% LREO (Light Rare Earth Oxides) for the Tembo and Twiga Zones. The updated resource estimate is only for the Twiga Zone and is based on data from the initial 15 core boreholes (1,560m) used in the initial resource estimate and data from infill drilling of 17 boreholes at 25m intervals (986m) completed in 2012. The data used in the revised Twiga Zone overall resource has outlined a higher grade REE deposit for this zone on the south-eastern ridge of the Wigu Hill carbonatite complex. A total Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.9 M tonnes at a grade of 2.7% LREO has been estimated from the preliminary and infill drilling of 32 boreholes (2,546m) for the Twiga Zone to a depth of 50m. A sensitivity analysis at a cut-off grade of 3% LREO has shown that the Inferred Mineral Resource contains a higher-grade portion consisting of 0.47 M tonnes averaging 5.2% LREO5. The independent estimate was prepared by AMEC Earth & Environmental Services (UK) Limited (AMEC).
