Sonia Madigan:
Following a very busy six months at its Mukinbudin rare earth elements project, Caprice Resources (CRS) is on track to start drilling this quarter. There have been some very promising signs to date to tell us about all of this.
I welcome the Managing Director of Caprice, Andrew Muir.
Andrew Muir:
Thanks, Sonia. Always good to be here.
Sonia Madigan:
So, Andrew, the Mukinbudin region seems to be attracting quite a lot of attention lately.
Andrew Muir:
Yeah, we really like this area. We recognize that it’s got good rare earth potential, so our immediate neighbours, Cygnus and Codrus. They’ve put out some good drill results in the last couple of months of rare earths in clays plus IGO and Rio have moved into the area recently.
So look, we’re really, really fascinated by how this is going to play out, and we think it’s got a lot of potential.
Sonia Madigan:
And you’ve already had some quality results from soil sampling.
Andrew Muir:
Yeah, that’s right. So we’ve had a pretty active last six months, we’ve done a number of rounds of soil sampling and we’re doing a very systematic exploration program. Obviously, reconnaissance works first and follow-up soil sampling to work out anomalies, looking to lead into drilling.
So far we’ve identified our galin anomaly, which is over one kilometre long. We’ve done intensive sampling over that, and that’s the most advanced prospect that we have. We’ve also got three other more early-stage, but really promising prospects in QC3, Hadrian and Quarry, which we’re undertaking follow-up sampling as we speak.
Sonia Madigan:
Now, given all of that, what would be the next milestone?
Andrew Muir:
So one of the key aspects of working in the Wheatbelt is to have an access agreement on the areas that we want to drill. I was up there last week and talked to the farmers. So we signed off on our first access agreement that covers the Gadolin prospect.
So that’ll be the first target that we’ll test. However, before we do that, we need to submit a program of works to the government and they’ll tick off, then we can roll the drills in.
Sonia Madigan:
So how do you see the timeline to drilling?
Andrew Muir:
So then now that we’ve signed the access agreement, we’ll submit the POW, that’ll be a ballpark four to six weeks.
So we are pretty keen on getting the drill rig in there before the end of this quarter.