Megado gets new rare earths ground in USA
Today, our most recent addition to the Catalyst Hunter portfolio, Megado Minerals (ASX:MEG) announced it had acquired new ground in the USA at its rare earths project.
More specifically, MEG has acquired new exploration ground at its North Fork Rare Earth Project in Idaho, USA including new ground near Johnson Creek, Montana, USA
We see this as a positive development, considering some of the new claims are adjacent to the Sheep Creek mine which is jointly owned by TSX-listed US Critical Metals Corp and privately held US Critical Materials Corp:
US Critical Materials Corp put out a press release at the end of January saying that rare earth samples from 125 feet underground at its Sheep Creek property in Montana had grades that exceeded any other domestic rare earth resource.
In that announcement, the company confirmed carbonatite mineralization at depth, below high-grade surface samples of 17.05% TREO and 16.44% TREO.
Jim Hedrick, the Critical Materials president and a former rare earth commodity specialist for the US Geological Service (USGS), said in recent coverage from Mining.com that the pre-resource-stage deposit is valued at a “conservative” $43BN.
While that number seems exceptionally large, and it is coming from the president of one of the owners of the Sheep Creek deposit (which is pre-resource), it does reflect the pressing need for USA based rare earths.
We hope MEG can benefit from the macro tailwinds of North American domestic critical materials production and demand across its projects in both the USA (rare earths) and Canada (lithium project, close to ~C$1.5BN capped Patriot Metals).
Today, MEG also released historical rock chip sample assays from 2013 and portable XRF results from the Jackpot prospect as seen below:
These are exceptionally high results and we want to see MEG drill out its USA rare earths project in Q2 and Q3.
What’s next for MEG? As per its timeline in its latest presentation, we expect the following:
🔄Fieldwork and sampling at Canada lithium project (Q1-Q3)
🔄Fieldwork and geophysics at USA rare earths project (Q1-Q3)
🔄Drilling program at USA rare earths project (Q2-Q3)
🔄Geophysics at Canada lithium project (Q3-Q4)
