Product staging area at ore sorter. Source: Vital Metals.
The Market Online - At The Bell

Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights

  • Vital Metals (VML) completes maiden mining and ore sorting campaign at its Nechalacho rare earths project in Canada
  • The company says it only mined two thirds of the planned 599,000 ton campaign, while its ore sorter exceeded expectations delivering high quantities of categorised materials
  • Vital also intersected a high-grade zone, the ‘dragon’s tail’, at North T during mining which has prompted the company to review its mine plan
  • A redesign of the pit will be completed during the Northern summer with a follow up mining campaign to be completed during the 2023 or 2024 summer period
  • Shares is trading in the grey at 4.9 cents

Vital Metals (VML) has completed a maiden mining and ore sorting campaign at its Nechalacho rare earths project in Canada.

The company said it only mined two-thirds of the planned 599,000-ton campaign, while its ore sorter exceeded expectations delivering high quantities of categorised materials.

The ore sorter sorted lower-grade material previously below the resource cut-off not included in the mine plan. This meant materials originally thought to be waste were recategorised as low grade.

Vital also intersected a high-grade zone, the ‘dragon’s tail’, at North T during mining which has prompted the company to review its mine plan.

Vital Metals Managing Director Geoff Atkins explained the reasoning behind the review.

“Because we have identified all this additional material which we are now able to process, we made the decision to amend our mining campaign, so that we can redesign the pit to ensure we maximise this additional quantity of rare earths which we will mine at North T in subsequent campaigns,” he said.

A redesign of the pit will be completed during the Northern summer with a follow-up mining campaign to be completed during the 2023 or 2024 summer period.

Shares were in the grey, trading at 4.9 cents at 11:15 am AEDT.

VML by the numbers
More From The Market Online
The Market Online Video

Market Close: ASX200 takes a slide into the weekend

The ASX200 shed 0.85% today – with every sector – except materials, losing ground. IT stocks…

Week 20 Wrap: EU-to-China cargoes up 12% YTD; US CPI tame

US inflation was the biggest data drop of the week; Anglo American is restructuring to fend…
The Market Online Video

Market Update: ASX dips with only materials afloat

The ASX is down nearly half a per cent - on par with future's predictions -…

Patagonia grows portfolio of REE and lithium-focused territory with exploration grants

Patagonia Lithium Ltd has been granted an additional 15 exploration licences in Argentina where it is…