- Three specialists to participate in PFS.
- Assessing potential economic benefit of heap leach processing.
- Granite-hosted material considered ideal for acid leaching.
- Proposed DFS scheduled to commence in CY27.
Red Metal (ASX:RDM) has hit a key milestone at the large, globally unique Sybella rare earth deposit in Queensland with the commencement of a pre-feasibility study (PFS) assessing the potential economic benefit of heap leach processing.
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Three globally credentialed, Queensland-based resource consultants, DRA Global, AMDAD, and The Core Group, have been commissioned to design, optimise and cost the rare earth mining, processing flow sheet and associated infrastructure for development of the Sybella Kary Zone ores.
Sybella’s unique granite-hosted ore body is characterised by soluble fluoro-carbonate rare earth minerals, which sets it apart from the common clay-hosted and monazite-dominated deposits. It starts at surface and offers very large tonnage potential with zero strip ratio and is well located just 20 kilometres south-west of Mount Isa.
Red Metal’s MD, Rob Rutherford, told shareholders the granite host is non-acid consuming, clay-poor, competent and very easily crushed, making it ideal for stacking into high permeable heaps for acid leaching.
Over the last two years, The Core Group have carried out extensive metallurgical testing optimising criteria for rare earth heap leaching, leading to the design of a simple process flowsheet and precipitation of a high-quality mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) product.
The rare earth extraction proposed for the Sybella ores utilises low-cost bulk mining techniques and simple ambient temperature, weak sulphuric acid heap leach processing. This routinely applied mining and processing method should allow our mining study to achieve a PFS level in a cost-effective and timely manner.
The PFS will further optimise the design and assess the economic benefit of heap leach processing 20 million tonnes per annum (Mt/a) of ore and scope the impact of scaling the operation down to 10 Mt/a and up to 25 Mt/a.
It will scope the benefits of building an acid plant on site verses purchasing acid on the open market, and also test the economic viability of separating the high-quality MREC into individual rare earth oxides.
“This body of work is expected to deliver our first robust economic assessment of Sybella while providing a gap analysis to guide the proposed definitive feasibility study scheduled to commence in 2027. It will also provide the data needed to advance off-take discussions with potential end users and may facilitate funding support from the Federal and State Governments and other entities,” Mr Rutherford said.
“We anticipate announcing the results from this important study program towards the end of this year or early next year.”
RDM is steady at 14¢. Mkt cap of $54.17M prior to markets opening.
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