Northern Minerals Brown Project with Dysprosium in Western Australia

Rare Earth Deposits & Mining / Rare Earth Exploration, Mining, Processing, & Uses

Date posted: 09/21/16

Northern Minerals flagship project is the Browns Range project in Western Australia and has a number of deposits and prospects containing high-value dysprosium and other HREs, hosted in xenotime mineralisation. Dysprosium is an essential ingredient in the production of NdFeB (neodymium iron-boron) magnets used in clean energy and high technology solutions. The project xenotime mineralization facilitates the use of a relatively simple and cost-effective processing flowsheet to produce a high-grade dysprosium rich-mixed rare earth oxide. Northern claims that one of the key features of the project is the simplicity of the rare earth mineralogy, dominated by xenotime (yttrium rare earth element (REE) phosphate) which is only one of a few rare earth minerals that has a track record of successful separation. The xenotime mineralization and mainly silica host rock offers a key advantage as it allows the ore to be readily upgraded through the beneficiation process by a factor of 30 times to achieve a 20% total rare earth oxide (TREO) mineral concentrate. Over 74,000 meters of drilling underpins the current total mineral resource at the Browns Range project which is estimated at 6.48 m tonnes at 0.74% TREO containing 4,000 tonnes dysprosium within 47,997 tonnes TREO using a cut-off grade of 0.15% TREO. At the Wolverine deposit the total mineral resource is estimated at 4.46 m tonnes at 0.86% TREO containing 3,300 tonnes dysprosium within 38,269 tonnes TREO using a cut-off grade of 0.15% TREO. Of the total mineral resource, 66% is classified as indicated resource, with the remainder in the inferred resource category. A maiden ore reserve for the project of 3.4 million tonnes of ore containing 2,048 tonnes dysprosium and 23,595 tonnes TREO was reported in 2014. The ore reserve statement is based on the outcomes of the Browns Range pre-feasibility study (PFS) and the mineral resource estimate. The ore reserve is classified as 100% probable ore reserve.