- Metallurgical test work from American Rare Earths’ (ARR) La Paz rare earth project in Arizona shows the ore responds well to conventional processing technology
- The company has seen 75 per cent of the gangue material removed before the flotation circuit, this will “significantly help” to reduce operating and capital costs for the project
- The metallurgical testing campaign is investigating how composites prepared from drill core respond to currently used processing technologies
- The next testing phase will focus on flotation to further increase total rare earth oxides recoveries
- On the market this morning, ARR shares are down 3.3 per cent and trading at 44 cents
American Rare Earths’ (ARR) metallurgical test work from its flagship La Paz project in Arizona show the ore responds well to conventional processing technology.
Metallurgy is a key for all rare earth projects and ARR reported that the allanite hosted minerals has respond well to widely used ore processing technologies.
The company has seen 75 per cent of the gangue material removed before the flotation circuit.
“This will significantly help to reduce operating and capital costs for the project,” Managing Director Chris Gibbs said.
The metallurgical testing campaign has been designed to investigate how composites prepared from diamond drill core respond to currently used processing technologies.
The campaign follows encouraging beneficiation work completed on surface rock chips involving magnetic separation and flotation combinations at Saskatchewan Research in
Canada in 2021.
Planned work will build on these results to produce a beneficiated concentrate that
maximises rejection of acid or alkali consuming gangue minerals.
Results from this test work have the opportunity to reduce operating and capital costs and will help underpin a preliminary economic assessment for La Paz, scheduled for the second half of 2022.
“We appreciate the work Wood Australia has been conducting on our behalf, as they
project manage the metallurgical test work program conducted at Nagrom Laboratories
in Perth,” Mr Gibbs said.
“Significant progress has been made and we look forward to the next round of test work
on the flotation and leach stages. Under the guidance of Wood, we are also pleased to
be partnering with Watts and Fisher, who have proprietary technology that could be a
game-changer for this project.”
ARR shares were down 3.3 per cent and trading at 44 cents at 11:41 am AEST.