VP Minerals (VPM) believe there is an opportunity for mineral exploration companies in Australia to implement low-cost mining methods in the development of mineral sands projects.They also believe this can be environmentally friendly, with much smaller capital expenditures to initiate and can remove a decent chunk of the processing and metallurgy risk that is always present with rare earths deposits if paired up with established oxide separation facilities.

When it comes to rare earths, the old adage of grade is king does more or less hold true when talking about hard rock and mineral sands projects. The complexity in developing should not be underestimated, and the industry isn’t short of tale’s of operations going wrong.

A section of North Western Victoria is shaping up to be a highly prospective region of rare earths hosted in mineral sands, and VPM have secured a 2,720km2 tenement package, proposed to increase to 4,509km2 by Q4 2023, that appears to be hosting a series of high-grade deposits that are near surface. The emerging region is renowned for neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), dysprosium (Dy), terbium (Tb) rare earth elements, with DyTb making up 30% of neighboring inventories. Dy and Tb are considered critical in the heavy rare earth metals group as they face low supply and increasing importance in the development of clean energy technologies.

Historical drilling campaigns have intersected a significant package of the host sand that contain critical mineral deposits. Previous companies have intersected significant amounts of critical minerals with little or no follow-up and VPM’s tenements line up with deposits/mines held by other companies such as Iluka and Tronox. 

VPM has identified a number of significant intersections from historical drilling that support the interpretation that high-grade continuous strandlines with strike lengths of 15 km are located within VPM’s tenements.

VPM have confirmed they will be able to launch and complete a drilling program by the end of Q1CY24 that will be sufficient to generate a potential mineral resource for a critical mineral deposit. The program is based on the highest priority targets out of the 70 total high-grade targets identified from geophysics conducted in 2022 and also following up on significant assay results from previous companies. VPM say that delineating a mineral resource will allow the company to bolster a certain valuation for their planned strategic capital event in H2CY24.

VPM remains equally excited about its gold prospects with geophysics undertaken by the company confirming the existence of multiple basement geologies which are consistent with other major Victorian gold fields.

Mineral Resources (ASX: MIN) boss Chris Ellison is VPM’s largest shareholder at 8.13%, and rare earths have seen a flood of interest from Australia’s mining billionaires over the past year. Gina Rhinehart has gone heavy into Arafura Resources (ASX: ARU), Andrew Forrest has taken significant exposure in Hastings Technology Metals (ASX: HAS), and Chris Ellison is also in VHM Limited (ASX: VHM).

Join VP Minerals on Thursday the 16th of November at 4pm (AEDT) to hear about why the company’s pockets of high grade rare earth deposits could make it suitable for a fast tracked development process. Click here to book in or request the replay.

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