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Murray Ward
ASX-listed Barkly Rare Earths has moved from planning to paddock action at its flagship Northern Territory project, kicking off civil works for a massive 10,000-metre drilling campaign designed to materially expand an existing 40-million-tonne rare earths resource.
With a newly installed 30,000 litre diesel tank, the full works crew and earthmoving equipment now on-site preparing access tracks and drill pads, the company says the rods are due to start turning next week on the 400-hole program.
The campaign is the first major field test for the company since it listed on the ASX in January following an oversubscribed $8 million IPO. Its primary goal is to chase extensions to the inferred mineral resource, which grades a solid 2100 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxide, or โTREOโ.
The company is also armed with two recent grants of $115,000 each awarded under the Northern Territoryโs highly regarded Geophysics and Drilling Collaborations program underlining the projectโs importance to the Territory.
โWhat makes Barkly compelling is its scale potential, mineralisation at surface, and low radiocative element content.โ
Barkly Rare Earths managing director Craig Wright
The current resource is contained within two optimised pit shells, however previous drilling between the two areas also hit rare earth mineralisation hinting at the potential for significant lateral expansion across a gap in the 20-kilometre corridor. That largely untested zone will now become the primary focus of the new drill-out.
Barklyโs deposit is hosted in near-surface, weathered quartz sandstone, a โsoft rockโ setting that is often simpler and cheaper to handle than the hard rock deposits that host many of the worldโs rare earths projects. The mineralisation also features a high magnet rare earth oxide (MREO) ratio of 34 per cent, notably low in deleterious radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium, which can otherwise complicate processing and approvals.
Barkly Rare Earths managing director Craig Wright said: โThis is an exciting step for Barkly. With site and pad preparation commencing this week, we are readying our initial 10,000 m Phase 1 drilling program aimed at testing the next stage of growth from our existing 40 million tonne inferred mineral resource.โ
The current drilling campaign is just the first step in a much grander plan. The company has previously tabled a massive exploration target for the project of between 200 million and 1 billion tonnes, grading between 1600 and 1900ppm TREO.
While the rods are getting ready to spin at its rare earths play, Barkly has also been busy advancing its secondary asset, the Buntine base metals project, located east of Halls Creek. Fieldwork at Buntine is now complete, with samples submitted for assay and results expected in the current quarter.
The Buntine project, which covers a strike length of nine kilometres, has turned up some impressive grades from historical rock chips, including one per cent lead, 7100ppm nickel and 1760ppm cobalt.
In another clever piece of business, Barkly has also farmed out the uranium rights at its Murphy West project, also in the NT, to fellow ASX-listed explorer DevEx Resources. The deal allows DevEx to earn up to a 75 per cent interest by spending $3.5 million over five years, giving Barkly an exploration โfree kickโ on its ground while it stays laser-focused on its rare earths ambitions.
DevEx is already homing in on drill-ready uranium targets at site, using a unique geochemical recipe to pinpoint anomalies hidden beneath cover.
The company has flagged a mineral resource update for its rare earths project by December. If this first phase of drilling can successfully connect the mineralisation across that 20km corridor, things could get very interesting very quickly.
The next steps for the back half of the year also include metallurgical test work and modelling along with results from Buntine and its ongoing rare earths concentration and extraction testing.
With an $8m war chest from its January listing, a couple of recent Northern Territory Government co-funding grants and the rods about to turn on a potentially company making drill program, Barkly looks to have set itself up for a news heavy run into the back half of the year.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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