AR3 - Australian Rare Earths

[Dona Ferentes]

Pretty good considering they don't even have an MD/CEO yet. ?

Bit of a learning curve going on. Had to do an Additional Disclosure to the Quarterly.

For further Information please contact:

Mr Rickie Pobjoy ; Executive (Technical) Director Tel: 1300 646 100 E: hello@ar3.com.au
Mr Damien Connor ; Company Secretary/Chief Financial Officer Tel: 1300 646 100 E: hello@ar3.com.au

For Media and Broker queries contact:
Michael Weir / Cameron Gilenko ; Citadel-MAGNUS Tel: 0402 347 032 / 0466 984 953

But on the upside, the lift in Market Cap may attract a higher calibre of MD?

 

[Tropico]

The American counterpart, ARR, must be caught in the same bubble.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

The American counterpart, ARR, must be caught in the same bubble.

yeah, possibly ....

Hey, broker, get me some of that " A R Three "

Broker enters ARRR and client ends up with ARR.

But seriously, is it a bubble, or a repricing? There are some similarities but also differences. Early days for both, and both shallow, both in good jurisdictions, but AR3 is ionic clay hosted with a spread of REE incl Nd n Pr, whereas ARR is a large tonnage, bulk deposit comprising high value, light rare earth (LREE) assemblage

 

[Tropico]

The similarities, or coincidences, are that they both have "Rare Earths" in their name and price movements.
But it really couldn't be that simple, could it?

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Highlights
• Recently completed 79 hole drill program delivers excellent results, confirming the potential for Koppamurra to host deposits of high grade rare earth ionic clays of global significance
• Drill program focused on testing areas adjacent to and extensional from the existing Red Tail and Yellow Tail resources
• All drillholes that reached target depth returned significant intersections at a 500ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) cut off
• A trend of high grade intersections is evident 3.5km along strike from the Yellow Tail resource area. Significant intersections range from 2000ppm to 4500ppm TREO
• Drilling conducted adjacent to the Red Tail resource area has supported continuation of mineralised clay intervals onto the adjacent private land, where land access agreements have been negotiated. Significant intersections range from 1000ppm to 1600ppm TREO

up 10% to above $1.10 and as high as 1.18

 

[Tropico]

It took most of the day, but AR3 eventually followed it's American brother, ARR, up. It's like they are conjoined twins.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Drilling program to commence at Koppamurra
Highlights
• Planning and preparation completed for 8,000m air-core drilling program
– Program developed to confirm regional prospectivity of flagship Koppamurra project
– Primary objective to confirm regional nature of mineralisation across granted (SA) tenure
– Additionally, program will aim to identify thick, high-grade mineralisation to support estimation of an Indicated Mineral Resource
– Highly-credentialled Exploration Manager and field crew engaged to manage and execute drill program
– Experienced, South Australian based, drilling contractor engaged
• Drilling expected to commence at the beginning of October and will be ongoing until end of year
• Exploration PEPR’s (Programs for Environmental Protection and Rehabilitation) approved
• Naracoorte, SA, regional office and warehouse established

.... and I guess the smaller (Vic) side will wait

 

[Dona Ferentes]

AR3 did a series of holes some 40km North of the Yellow Tail n Red Tail prospects, and delivered up similar RE concentrations. Not high, but ionic clays are a different depositional environment to other, hard-rock prospects....

• Initial assays from the current Koppamurra drilling programme confirm grades ranging from 600ppm to 1000ppm Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO), consistent with the maiden resource average grade of 725ppm released in April 2021
• Regional exploration confirms clay hosted rare earth mineralisation extends at least 40km north of the existing Red Tail and Yellow Tail mineral resource area, demonstrating the significant prospectivity potential across the 4000km2 of tenure held by AR3
• The current 8,000m air-core drilling program is now ~70% complete with over 2,500 samples selected for submission for assay from 458 drill holes
• The remainder of the current program is focussed on additional drilling at EL6509 (Red Tail and Yellow Tail) to extend the resource with update planned for Q1 2022
• AR3 has been granted two additional tenements in South Australia, EL6690 (Keith) and EL6691 (Bordertown).

SP up 10% and back above $1.00

 

[Dona Ferentes]

AR3 is one of my tips for the 2022 Comp. SP had dropped yesterday to below 80c but is on the rebound; now 86c.

It is a bit of a gamble, because the RE space is competitive. And we have the run and collapse from a decade ago as a sobering reminder. Other companies are further ahead, in Australia, and then we have China hanging on to its lead, plus sovereign players (USA, Europeans, Japan) trying to shore up supplies. And the great unknown; how much demand is there really, and is it essential/ irreplaceable?

AR3 is pursuing the ionic clay hosting. It is early days, as they prove up a project. The advantages are it is shallow, and apparently low in radioactive elements with a bias to Nd/Pr. But, the project lies on farming / grazing land, so we assume there will be opposition, and early pressure to rehabilitate land. And the metallurgy is a work in progress; let's hope the ANSTO lab in Adelaide lives up to its reputation.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

and AR3 is an outside hope for Jan 2022 competition. Might be a bit early, though.

To date; samples from all 10 drillholes generated significant intersections and returned grades and clay thicknesses consistent with those reported on the Red Tail and Yellow Tail maiden resource on EL6509
• [as at 25 Nov], the current 8,000m air-core drilling program is now ~70% complete with over 2,500 samples selected for submission for assay from 458 drill holes
• The remainder of the current program is focussed on additional drilling at EL6509 (Red Tail and Yellow Tail) to extend the resource with update planned for Q1 2022

 

[Dona Ferentes]

It took most of the day, but AR3 eventually followed it's American brother, ARR, up. It's like they are conjoined twins.

They're doing it* again

*kwinkidens

 

[Dona Ferentes]

and today's update helped AR3 along. An evolving project.

• Results from 174 drillholes representing a significant portion of the regional prospectivity drilling conducted on EL6613 (Francis), confirm shallow rare earth mineralised clayey sediments across a wide region of the Koppamurra Project area.
– At a 350ppm Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) cut-off grade, 124 or 71% of the drill holes generated significant intersections, averaging 663ppm TREO
– At a 500ppm TREO cut-off grade, 109 or 63% of the drill holes generated significant intersections, averaging 800ppm TREO
• Importantly, the average of the combined Neodymium/Praseodymium contents of the TREO (21.5%), and the average Dysprosium content of the TREO (2.5%) for these intersections is consistent with the magnet rare earth contents of the Red Tail and Yellow Tail resources ~40km’s to the south
• Like the Red Tail and Yellow Tail deposits, rare earth mineralisation identified in the assays from this recent drilling occurs in shallow settings within the wider region.
• Extension drilling to the north and south of Red Tail and Yellow Tail continues to indicate a prospective setting for the accumulation of rare earth mineralisation and a 10,000m drilling program is planned for commencement in February 2022 to define additional resources there.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

It has always been my concern that resource extraction will impact a large area, with a lot of this being farmland. Here's hoping the following program can show things can proceed effectively (and assuming the TREO numbers build a case)

As part of AR3’s development of the Koppamurra Project, a Trial Pit is in planning in an area of prospective mineralisation on private land adjacent the existing Red Tail resource area. The trial is expected to provide several beneficial outcomes in advancing the Project. It will,
– allow for significant bulk sample collection for larger scale metallurgical testwork;
– provide access to the mineralised zone over a wide area to progress understanding of the geological system at micro and macro scale; and
– allow AR3 to demonstrate the shallow nature of the deposit and the potential for rapid rehabilitation of disturbed areas to stakeholders and the broader community.

Drilling on the proposed Pit area, roughly 200m long by 40m wide, using the push tube core method, on a nominally 10m x 10m grid, provided detailed geological input to the planning of the Trial Pit.

Assays show quite a wide range of TREO as would be expected. Looking at a 2m tick mineralised zone.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

and here's one for the glass half full / half empty debate; is Koppamurra a marginal/ dud? and the thirst for capital for the new prospects?

• Leveraging the expertise developed during the past two-year assessment of the 100% owned flagship Koppamurra Project, AR3 has identified other highly prospective regions for clay hosted rare earth exploration within Australia

Three new areas have been added to the AR3 exploration portfolio:
Woolgangie (Western Australia)
– A Joint Venture with Belres Pty Ltd that includes two granted exploration tenements and five pending applications, 60km south-east of Coolgardie
– Previous drilling identified thicknesses up to 22m of anomalous rare earth element content in regolith under 10m of overburden
– AR3 has also submitted tenement applications immediately adjacent to those within the Belres JV, giving a total combined 2,200km2 of prospective exploration area

Dalrymple (Queensland)
– Five exploration licence applications, centred 100km SW from Bowen in Queensland
– Exploration tenure dominated by rock suites containing high value prospective rare earth minerals, including Allanite
– 1,505km2 of highly accessible ground near existing road and rail infrastructure

Massie Creek (Queensland)
– Granted Exploration Licence EMP 27952, roughly 200km WSW of Cairns, allowing for rapid onground evaluation of the prospect
– Nearby stream sediment sampling detected elevated REE that may originate from the igneous host rocks in the region
– 327km2 of prospective ground in a location with highly weathered clay potential

 

[Dona Ferentes]

and it's a long slow process......

• Mineralogical analysis and metallurgical testing on samples from the Red Tail and Yellow Tail resource in the Koppamurra Project continue to deliver positive results.
• Mineralogical analysis identified that the rare earth elements Lanthanum (La), Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr), Samarium (Sm), and Terbium (Tb) are highly distributed to Lanthanite minerals hosted in clay (<20µm in size) at Koppamurra.
• Metallurgical testing using various extraction techniques and test conditions demonstrated rare earth extraction of up to 68% of the valuable rare earth oxides used in high strength magnets. (Neodymium N2O3, Praseodymium Pr6O11, Dysprosium Dy2O3 and Terbium Tb4O7).
• Commenced mineral processing tests aimed at rejecting non target minerals and optimising metallurgical extraction of magnet rare earth minerals to finalise the process flowsheet for Koppamurra.

Don Hyma, Managing Director of Australian Rare Earths said:

“The preliminary metallurgical test results are encouraging and aligned with our expectations for the uniquely clay hosted rare earth minerals discovered at Koppamurra. We are very fortunate to be working with worldclass rare-earth metallurgists and testing facilities in our efforts to finalise a process flowsheet for the Project.”

 

[Dona Ferentes]

seem to be quite a few ionic clay resources being noticed, now companies are looking. Which will win the prize, of proceeding to development?

Koppamurra Drilling Program Indicates Strong Potential for Larger Resource

Highlights
• Koppamurra project’s second major drilling program which ran between February and April 2022 successfully identified extensive, shallow, rare-earth mineralisation adjacent to the Red Tail and Yellow Tail resource deposits, with thicknesses and grades consistent with those previously found in these areas.
• The intensive resource definition drilling program, undertaken over an area equivalent in size to the Red Tail and Yellow Tail maiden resource footprint, consisted of 1,158 holes and 11,480m at 100m x 100m spacing to supplement the previous drilling of 899 holes and 9,920m in late 2021
• Additional density determinations across a wide area of the closely spaced drilling supports a 30% dry bulk density increase to be applied in the updated resource estimate
• These results provide a high level of confidence that the mineralised clays remain shallow, low cost to mine and consistently thick up to ~8km north of Red Tail and Yellow Tail.
• The three-fold increase in meters drilled at tighter spacing will form the basis for a planned mineral resource update scheduled for June 2022. This will be the first major update since the maiden resource of 39.9Mt reported in April 2021

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Trading Halt requested pending an announcement in relation to a capital raising

Not a good sign, when the SP is at a low. Diluting / gifting by way of placement?

 

[Dona Ferentes]

• Firm commitments from institutional and sophisticated investors for a Placement to raise $8.1 million (before costs).
• Strong support for the Placement from several high regarded new institutional investors based domestically and internationally.
• The Placement price of $0.44 per share represents a 6% discount to the 15-day volume weighted average price (VWAP) of $0.47.
• The Company has now strengthened its balance sheet to fund further work at the 100% owned flagship Koppamurra clay hosted rare earth project located in South Australia.

.... and heading towards 44c (or lower)

 

[Dona Ferentes]

• JORC Mineral Resource Estimate for the Koppamurra clay-hosted rare earths project, located on the South Australian-Victorian border, increases by 104% to 81.4Mt at 785ppm TREO (total rare earth oxide)
• This includes an initial Indicated Resource of 45Mt at 835ppm TREO
• The updated Mineral Resource estimate, which is more than double the initial Mineral Resource posted in April 2021, is considered a key milestone because it demonstrates that AR3 is well on the path to establishing a world-scale inventory at Koppamurra
• TREO Grade of the Indicated Resource is 15% higher than the initial Inferred Resource published in April 2021 of 725ppm

The consistent nature of the deposit enables expedient drilling and rapid Resource growth as well as the ability to undertake progressive rehabilitation, all of which continues to distinguish Koppamurra as a unique rare earth business opportunity.

"Our vision is to progress down a pathway that will see Koppamurra in production by 2025/26, perfectly timed to take advantage of surging demand for rare earths."

.....
I still worry that the location, on farmland, becomes an issue.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

ah yes, the ol' 4:52 on a Friday arvo announcement

Mr Don Hyma’s employment as Managing Director of the Company ceased on 19 August 2022. Mr Hyma commenced in the position of Managing Director on 5 October 2021. The Board would like to thank Mr Hyma for his contribution to the Company and wishes him all the best in his future endeavours.

Didn't even last 12 months. How to blow up cash (of which a minnow explorer doesn't have too much). Down 9%, below 40c.

The Company’s Technical Director and executive Board member, Mr Rick Pobjoy, has been appointed as Acting Managing Director and will manage the day to day operations of the Company and, in conjunction with the Board, will continue to progress the development of the Company’s Koppamurra Project.

Mr Pobjoy previously acted as AR3’s Managing Director from its listing in July 2021 until 4 October 2021. Since listing he has led the Company’s highly successful exploration and drilling program as well as the metallurgical process development. He has also played a pivotal role in AR3’s engagement with communities. It is expected that Mr Pobjoy will undertake the role of Acting Managing Director for the remainder of the current financial year during which time he will lead the Company’s focus on increasing the Project’s indicated resource and developing all aspects of the Koppamurra Project