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Everest Metals Corporation (ASX:EMC) has posted its first MRE for the Mt. Edon Rubidium project, coming at over 7,900 tonnes of rubidium on an inferred basis.
On the back of that, the company has now kicked off a scoping study due in Q1 of next year with downstream testwork results on the company’s ore due before the new year.
the company noted Rubidium products are currently trading at around US$1,200/kg, pointing to increasing demand. The company also noted its MRE is based on 400m of strike within a larger 1.2km pegmatite corridor.
Rubidium’s role as a critical mineral is underscored by its applications: in defence, nuclear energy, infrared, and aerospace. Rubidium can also be used as an imaging agent in PET scans.
The high-value metal is associated with lithium and it’s from that world explorer-watches may recognise the name (the uninitiated, at least.) In many contexts, rubidium is an indicator mineral for the world’s favourite battery metal.
But on its own right, the metal also fetches an attractive price – and production remains dominated by China, according to the latest data, despite Canada once boasting that title in the early 2000’s.
“Production of rubidium from all countries, excluding China, ceased within the past two decades. Mining of rubidium in Namibia ceased in the early 2000s,” the US Geological Survey (USGS) wrote in its most recent assessment for the commodity rubidium.
“The Sinclair Mine in Australia completed the mining and shipments of all economically recoverable pollucite ore in 2019.”
Everest geotechs further interpret it’s possible an open cut mine could be built at Mt. Edon with a low stripping ratio – but shareholders will need to wait for a scoping study on that front.
“Rubidium is a critical mineral which plays a significant and growing role in national security, healthcare and emerging energy applications … [it] currently has a small global market, but this has been driven by supply constraints rather than demand,” Everest CEO Mark Caruso said.
“Our initial MRE will serve as a foundation for a mining Scoping Study, as the world-class scale and grade prompt us to move rapidly to complete this study in conjunction with ongoing rubidium extraction and purification testwork.
“We will finalise test work in Q4 CY24 to feed into the Scoping Study, which is due for delivery in Q1 CY25.”
EMC last traded at 11cps.
