PNN to start diamond drilling at Brazilian rare earths project
Our rare earths Investment Power Minerals (ASX: PNN) just confirmed it will commence its maiden diamond drilling campaign at the Morro do Ferro (MDF) Rare Earths Project in Brazil later this month.
PNN officially completed the acquisition ~2 weeks ago.
And now drilling is expected to start “next month”.
PNN will be following up historic drill results like the following:
(source)
We are hoping to see those high magnet rare earth oxide (MREO) grades replicated with PNN’s drill program.
Here there are specifically high magnetic rare earth oxides (MREO) which are 4 highly valuable and sought after elements that are generally found in much lower concentrations in most rare earth projects.
Specifically these 4 elements are:
neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb) oxides, used in things like Neodymium-Iron-Boron (NdFeB) magnets, Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Wind Turbines:
The drilling program confirmed today is split across two parts of the project:
- A 3,000m diamond drill program specifically aiming at depth and lateral extensions.
- While the metallurgical drilling consists of 800m of a larger “PQ diamond” type core drilling which will collect larger samples that will be used for met testing.
We like this approach because it helps progress workflows in parallel, which is critical when there is a large demand spike.
Because the timing of getting into production can be more important to ensure that elevated prices remain, especially during early production when production risks are high.
So all up there is 3,800m of diamond drilling and PNN expects this to take around 3 months, with first assays expected in coming weeks, as soon as early June.
As a reminder of the historical results PNN is looking to verify, these include high grade TREO and specifically those high grade MREO’s that we mentioned earlier:
(source)
The foundation that PNN’s exploration plan is being built on (over 4,000m of diamond core drilling and 846.5m of auger drilling done by previous owners).
From an earlier announcement, here is a look at those existing drilling results:
(source)
See our deep dive into the asset here: PNN: New Brazil rare earths project. 156 drill holes. High grade hits. SGQ 2.0?
The Morro do Ferro (MDF) Rare Earths Project is also in good company within the same Caldera (a historic, very much dormant volcano), which is a source of these rare earth deposits.
Nearby are both $342M capped Viridis Mining and Minerals and $592M capped Meteoric Resources, PNN is capped at ~$48M allowing for completion of the raise with the project:
(source)
Also included today was an update on PNN’s other rare earths project, Santa Anna, where drilling has been temporarily halted to focus more attention on the MDF project.
In the near term here there will be ongoing negotiations with local land holders aiming to open up more areas for exploration.
This is a move we like, although the project has seen some solid hits, it is clear focus had been shifting to MDF.
In recent presentations from new CEO Alistair Stephens the Santa Anna project was being mentioned for its high niobium grades also, so it is clear now that MDF is the main focus.
Once MDF has progressed further we should see some attention shift back to Santa Anna.
New CEO Alistair Stephens has been busy getting up to speed on PNN’s new projects, he has been to Brazil to check out both rare earth projects and Argentina for PNN’s lithium project.
He has also held a webinar, investor presentations (of which we attended one) and just last week presented at RIU Sydney which you can view below:
PNN - Power Minerals' RIU presentation
What we want to see next from PNN
🔲Drilling to get under at the recently acquired rare earths project (Morro do Ferro)
With due diligence on the project completed, PNN today announced a drilling program to get underway soon with results expected from early June.
Today PNN confirmed that drilling “will commence later this month”:
(source)
(source)
🔄Drilling at it’s existing Brazilian rare earths project (Santa Anna)
We also want to see PNN drill out and define a maiden JORC resource estimate in Brazil to enable comparison to peers, a maiden JORC resource estimate is expected this quarter. (source)
🔄Lithium JV deal with Summit for lithium assets
PNN has entered into a non binding term sheet which it aims to turn into a binding agreement within 90 days which would see it form a JV with Summit with PNN retaining 41% control of it and possibly 3 additional projects Summit may bring into the JV.
Summit is capable of providing the DLE extraction and would be tasked with constructing a pilot plant to produce a 5,000t DLE plant and take the JV through to a PFS.
Summit would be able to take entire control of the projects for US$50M, so we await during the 90 day period to see if this deal completes and the final terms of the agreement.
