April 2012 Updates To The TMR Advanced Rare-Earth Projects Index

by Gareth Hatch on May 1, 2012 · 6 comments

I recently updated the list of projects on the TMR Advanced Rare-Earth Projects Index, to reflect one new rare-earth mineral-resource estimate that was announced recently. I also made some other updates. The specifics:

Greenland Minerals and Energy Ltd. (ASX:GGG, PK:GDLNF) announced a JORC-compliant mineral-resource estimate for its Zone 2 project in Greenland, on March 21, 2012. According to the associated press release, 242 Mt of the resource is at the Inferred level @ 1.10% TREO, at a cut-off grade of 0.015 wt% U₃O₈).

I have also updated the pricing used in the Index data, to reflect the average monthly prices for April 2012 and the moving three-year average price for separated rare-earth oxides.

In addition, to the new projects above, two companies with projects on the Index announced updates to their existing resource estimates:

On April 16, 2012, Pele Mountain Resources Inc. (TSX.V:GEM, OTCQX:GOLDF) announced an update to its NI-43-101-compliant mineral-resource estimate for the Eco Ridge project in Canada, as part of an updated Preliminary Economic Assessment report. According to the associated press release, 48.7 Mt of the resource is at the Indicated level @ 0.12% TREO and 37.9 Mt is at the Inferred level @ 0.22% TREO (each at a cut-off value of $100 / tonne for the Main Conglomerate Bed and $50 / tonne for the Hanging Wall Zone).
Hudson Resources Inc. (TSX.V:HUD, OTCQX:HUDRF) announced an update to its NI 43-101-compliant mineral-resource estimate for the ST1 Zone of its Sarfartoq project in Greenland, on April 26, 2012. According to the associated press release, 5.9 Mt of the resource is at the Indicated level @ 1.77% TREO and 2.5 Mt is at the Inferred level @ 1.59% TREO (each at a cut-off grade of 1.0 wt% TREO).

FYI, TMR is now tracking a total of 429 rare-earth projects under development associated with 261 different companies in 37 different countries.

You can access the updated details via the Index page.

Disclosure: at the time of writing, Gareth Hatch holds no shares or stock options in any of the companies mentioned in this article, or in any publicly traded rare-earth company, nor is he doing paid consulting for any such company.

About Gareth Hatch

For more than 20 years, Gareth Hatch has helped people and organizations to better understand the challenges of the critical-materials supply chain. He is Managing Director of Strategic Materials Advisors and was a co-founder of Technology Metals Research, consulting firms operating in the critical-materials sector. Gareth is co-founder and CEO of Innovations Metals Corp. (IMC), developers of the proprietary RapidSX™ separation and purification process for critical metals. IMC is owned by Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSX.V:UCU) for whom he serves as CTO and Director. The views and opinions expressed by Gareth on this archived Web site are his alone. Such views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of any other person or entity.

1 Michael Franzen May 3, 2012 at 5:02 PM: The Pele Mountain PEA is the best one I have seen so far and the pencil is pretty sharp on the numbers, can anyone show me one that is better considering the upside potential in Goldf stock price?
2 Parry Laird May 3, 2012 at 5:14 PM: Gareth….I have a question. Now that it seems the bloom is off the rose so to speak, relative to REE’s, do you have any insite for us concerning the grafite miners?
Thanks,
Parry
3 Michael Franzen May 3, 2012 at 5:35 PM: Okay I looked at the chart but if we include the uranium and potential increase in stock price, infrastructure, location, and timing Pele Mountain Eco Ridge comes out on top because the bottom line is how much money can be made buying the stock.
4 Michael Franzen May 3, 2012 at 6:08 PM: If we combine the solid oxide fuel cell (Bloom Box) made with rare earth and the super capacitor made with graphite we solve the world’s energy problem with an energy source replacing utility power, UPS, and emergency generators at a fraction of cost of current technology. We can also make a miltary laser weapon with rare earth see the WSJ article today. Problem is there will not be enough rare earth to go around.
5 Pieter J Mazereeuw May 4, 2012 at 9:32 PM: Thank you very much for the update. I am always surprised by the outliers and their comparison with the median groupings. The outliers have the rich deposits but it then comes down to the cost of retrieval or processing! This data is invaluable when done with comparative analysis as you have so adequately collected and displayed.
6 Tim Ainsworth May 27, 2012 at 3:06 PM: Gareth,
CUX.AX have just announced a JORC compliant resource and would be interesting to see how it rates against it’s peers on the TMR index at the next update.
http://hotcopper.com.au/announcementFiles/2012/CUX/4459f83b-ec91-4fda-b5fe-69dce50ec9ca-CUX589836.pdf
The interesting aspect to CUX is their alluvial resource appears amenable to a low cost strip and concentrate process that could be brought to production relatively quickly.
Raises the question facing all the juniors aiming to produce a concentrate: where is the processing capacity, particularly to handle the HREE rich feeds such as CUX, NTU and others are aiming to produce?