PNN starts 10,000m drill program on rare earths project in Brazil

Our Investment Power Minerals (ASX: PNN) just started a 10,000m drill program on its rare earths project in Brazil.

For the past few months, PNN’s been running a shallow auger drill program on the project.

Today, PNN kicked off the deeper program with a heavier RC rig.

We have been looking forward to this one because it will mean PNN can test for at depth extensions to the rare earths intersected by the shallow holes…

AND it can give us a better sense of the type of carbonatite complex PNN’s project sits on top of:

(source)

Previous drilling on these targets have returned intercepts as thick as ~51m with 1.16% rare earth oxide grades (from surface).

We want to see the deeper program confirm and extend those intercepts…

So far, a large part of the ~5.8km^2 carbonatite is untested so there is potential for a substantial deposit to be uncovered IF this next round of drilling comes in.

This is one of the main reasons we like this project is because, IF PNN’s exploration model is proven correct, then the company holds the ground that covers the entire carbonatite complex.

Over the last few months, PNN has completed several rounds of shallow aircore drilling on the project and recently said that its theory of a hard rock intrusion has been validated:

(Source)

At this stage, we know there are rare earths in the shallow parts of PNN’s project.

Now we want to see evidence from the deeper holes to confirm that the rare earths extend at depth.

The deeper drilling will be what confirms PNN’s exploration model.

Here is a LinkedIn post PNN put up, showing the rigs in action:

(source)

What’s next for PNN?

🔄Drilling at Brazilian rare earths project

We want to see PNN start deeper RC drilling, PNN said today that it “plans to commence a 10,000m RC drilling campaign this month”. (source)

We also want to see PNN drill out and define a maiden JORC resource estimate in Brazil to enable comparison to peers.

Here are the milestones we are tracking on PNN’s Brazilian rare earths project:

Milestones:

✅ Geophysics/Geochemistry work (geophysics results recently)

✅ Drilling starts (Auger drilling started, RC drilling commenced - today)

🔄 Drilling results

🔲 Maiden JORC resource estimate

🔄Regain control of the Rincon lithium asset

PNN will now need to repay US$1M to the previous Joint Venture partner (Navigate Energy) by 28th of February to take 100% ownership of the Rincon asset.

(source)

We want to see that repayment get made and PNN return to 100% ownership before any other work is done on the project.