SGQ to upgrade the largest, highest-grade carbonatite-hosted rare earth deposit in South America

Our rare earths and niobium Investment St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) keeps hitting high grade rare earths and niobium from its project in Brazil.

SGQ’s project has the following resources:

• 40.6Mt of Rare Earths at grades of 4.13% TREO (total rare earths oxide)
• 41.2Mt of Niobium at grades of 0.63%

Which makes it currently the largest and highest-grade carbonatite-hosted rare earth deposit in South America…

… and the second highest grade REE deposit globally in the Western world.

SGQ is drilling the project right now with three diamond rigs and one RC rig - which we are hoping leads to material resource upgrades in the future.

The first of which we could see this quarter - SGQ’s previous guidance was for a resource upgrade in Q1, while drilling continues indefinitely throughout 2026. (source)

Today’s batch of results once again confirm thick, high grade rare earths (and niobium) from or near surface (mostly from inside SGQ’s existing resource area):

(source)

After today’s news, SGQ has high grade niobium and rare earths discovered ~400m to the northwest, 230m to the west, 1km to the east of its existing resource.

So SGQ’s upcoming resource upgrade could be a big one...

So far here is how it looks for SGQ’s asset:

(source)(source)(source)(source)

SGQ still has 31 holes in the lab with assays pending and SGQ plans to continue drilling indefinitely into 2026 - well beyond the resource upgrade that is incoming.

Most importantly though… mineralisation remains open in all directions and at depth, with current drilling coverage representing less than 10% of the total project area.

So we expect to see a lot more drilling newsflow out of SGQ over the coming months.

What’s next for SGQ?

Drilling results 🔄

From this drilling announcement, “Expansion and resource definition drilling continues 24/7 with three diamond core rigs and one RC rig – with the drill campaign extending into 2026 indefinitely; 31 drill holes at the laboratory with assays pending” (source)

In the short term the main thing we want to see are drill results.

Ideally we see big extensions at depth and to the north/east/west of SGQ’s current JORC resource estimate, which initial results like those today have shown.

(Source)

Beyond the drilling 🔄

Over the next 12-18 months, a lot of the catalysts for SGQ could come at hard-to-forecast times:

• Updates on downstream processing strategy - We want to see SGQ define its downstream rare earths strategy. We are especially looking forward to an update in relation to the US.
• Work on development studies - SGQ has already commenced environmental, geotechnical and development studies, which were mentioned as continuing here and in the most recent quarterly, that negotiations with government were underway to expedite these (source).
• Pilot plant trials - SGQ has signed an agreement with CEFET to jointly collaborate on a new Pilot Plant trial that will build on the prior 9 month trial from 2012-13 which successfully produced rare earth product at over 99% purity and recoveries of 86% TREO.

SGQ is also participating in the “MAGBRAS Initiative” - a program that has major automakers like Stellantis working toward building Brazil’s first permanent magnet-making facility.

• Metwork and sample production - SGQ should have results from this in the pipeline with the creation of the St George Technical Centre. The main catalyst we are looking forward to is the re-starting of SGQ’s pilot plant with development of this underway with the agreement signed with CEFET to host and jointly collaborate. This will allow for product samples to be produced for potential strategics/offtake partners.
• Permitting - SGQ is targeting completion for permitting by Q4-2026.

(Source)