{"id":1190028,"date":"2020-06-12T13:49:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T18:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1026991"},"modified":"2020-06-12T13:49:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T18:49:32","slug":"appia-to-drill-at-worlds-2nd-richest-rare-earth-deposit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1190028","title":{"rendered":"Appia to drill at world\u2019s 2nd richest rare earth deposit"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 80-85% of North America\u2019s rare earths supply currently comes from China, a situation that is becoming untenable, given the US-China trade war tensions and coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Shutdowns to manufacturing plants in China that could potentially cut off rare earths imports shone a spotlight on the fact that North America is reliant on China for its rare earths needs.<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada and the US in 2019 finalized the Canada-US Joint Action Plan<\/a> on Critical Minerals Collaboration, aimed to advance the countries\u2019 mutual interest in securing domestic rare earths supply chains. The only actively producing rare earths mine in North America is Mountain Pass in California, but the asset is owned by Chinese interests.<\/p>\n

Of the 35 minerals and metals the US deemed critical<\/a> earlier this year, Canada was identified as a major import source for 13.<\/p>\n

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The deposit hosts some of the highest rare earth elements mineralization in the world, hosted within a number of surface and near-surface occurrences that remain open at depth and along strike<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

The $14 billion-a-year rare earth magnet market is being driven mainly by electric vehicles, wind generators, medical devices, smartphones, and aerospace and defense applications.<\/p>\n

Canadian uranium producer Appia Energy (CSE: API) has made a discovery at its 100% owned, 14,334 – hectare Alces Lake property in Saskatchewan that could fill the gap in the Canadian rare earths market.  <\/p>\n

Alces Lake is located north of Lake Athabasca and the Athabasca Basin, about 34 km east of Uranium City and 135 km west of Stony Rapids. <\/p>\n

The deposit, according to the company, hosts some of the highest rare earth elements (REE) mineralization in the world, hosted within a number of surface and near surface occurrences that remain open at depth and along strike. At a 4 wt% total rare earth oxide cutoff, Alces Lake average grade is 16.65 wt% Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO). <\/p>\n

\u201cOf global rare earths deposits, ours is number 2 in terms of grade, it\u2019s one of the richest prospects in the world,\u201d Tom Drivas, CEO, Appia Energy told MINING.COM.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur project contains one mineral, which is monazite. With that mineral, the processing is well known, we don\u2019t think there will be any challenges with extracting and processing the rare earths \u2013 with 99-100% monazite \u2013 it makes it simple,” Drivas said. <\/p>\n

The monazite, Drivas said, is enriched in valuable critical rare earth elements, namely neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. These 4 elements account for between 23-25% of the TREO, or ~85% of the potential value at Alces Lake.<\/p>\n

At a 16 average wt%, Alces Lake grades well above what is required to make project viable economically, Drivas said. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo have a successful rare earths project, you need to have the right mix of rare earths, and what we have here is the praseodymium, which is the critical rare earths, about 25% of those \u2013 could represent 80-85% of the deposit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be in the right environment, and unless you\u2019re in the right jurisdiction you won\u2019t be able to explore or mine,” he said. <\/p>\n

Appia will also have the ability to process \u2013 the Saskatchewan Research Council has a plant where the company can process 2,000 tonnes a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few zones sub surface- about 20 metres from surface, we\u2019re getting, up to 80-85% monazite, right on surface. This is unheard of in the industry \u2013 it is exciting,\u201d Drivas said. <\/p>\n

Appia is launching its summer exploration drilling program<\/a> mid- June, piggybacking on existing permits \u2013 and with all applications in the pipeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think Alces Lake could supply Canada, and North America in terms of rare earths feed,” Drivas said. “We\u2019d like to get to the initial resource, and move to the next level. \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alces Lake is located north of Lake Athabasca and the Athabasca Basin, about 34 km east of Uranium City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2849,369,4],"tags":[43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1190028"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190065,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190028\/revisions\/1190065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1190028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1190028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1190028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}