Mount Ridley Mines Limited (ASX: MRD) is preparing to commence drilling at its 100% owned Mount Ridley REE Project, located approximately 50km north of the Port of Esperance, Western Australia and with an area of approximately 3,400km
The key tasks for 2023 include resource delineation drilling and advancing metallurgical studies towards the development of a flow sheet for the extraction of rare earths,” Chairman Peter Christie said.
“The company is well positioned to fund these work programmes with cash and liquid security reserves of approximately $5.5 million.
“Drill sites are being prepared now for an aircore programme of at least 50,000m to be drilled over the next two quarters. At the same time, 961.5m of drill core is being cut and sampled at the ALS metallurgical laboratory ahead of extractive metallurgical test work.”
Stage 3 – Primary Target Expansion Drilling: The company has received Programme of Works (POW) approvals from the Department of Mines Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS), which permits aircore drilling at all prospects, including Mia, Butch, Tyrrell’s Keith’s, Marcellus’, Winston’s, Jules’ and Vincent’s Prospects.
Drilling will resume at the Mia Prospect on a 2,000m by 400m pattern, progressively being closed in to a 400m by 400m grid as results warrant, a process that will be undertaken at all targets. Further infill drilling will take place as required to enable JORC compliant Resource estimates to be completed.
Extractive Metallurgy will commence concurrently.
The company has retained Independent Metallurgical Operations, a Perth-based metallurgical consultancy and laboratory, to plan and oversee REE extraction test work as the first step towards the development of a process flowsheet.
In late 2022, the company completed 20 PQ diamond drill core holes providing 961.5m of material for extractive metallurgical test work.
Currently the core is being cut, photographed and non-destructively analysed using infra-red and x-ray techniques. A subset of the core will be analysed conventionally to provide baseline head grades.
Subsequent studies will include;
- Beneficiation
- Clay mineralogy and identification of the REE-host minerals
- Salt and acid leach testing under a range of conditions
- Specific gravity measurements and
- Other novel leach trials.
