Vital Metals' June 2021 Quarterly Report

30 July 2021

Highlights

  • Vital commences rare earth production at Nechalacho in June 2021 with commencement of ore crushing
  • Vital becomes Canada’s first rare earths producer and the second in North America
  • Blasting and mining activities ramped up – first blast completed in May, first ore mined 28 June 2021, ore stockpiled for crushing
  • Installation of ore sorter complete and commissioning underway
  • Vital intersects high-grade rare earth mineralisation in drilling at Tardiff zones, which it plans to mine in Stage 2 operations
  • Close-spaced drilling at Zone 1 defined a strong zone of REO mineralisation with wide intersections greater than 2% TREO
  • Vital receives positive results from Stage 2 metallurgical testwork, highlighting potential to continue a similar process flowsheet as used in Stage 1
  • Vital receives formal product acceptance of product sample from offtake partner REEtec • Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency ("CanNor") provides C$1.26M funding for Vital's Nechalacho ore sorter.

Vital Metals Limited (ASX: VML) (“Vital Metals” or “the Company”) is pleased to report on its activities during the June 2021 quarter, including at its 100%-owned Nechalacho Rare Earth Project in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. 

Vital Metals Managing Director Geoff Atkins said: “We worked incredibly hard during the June quarter to ensure we could deliver on our goal of rare earth production at Nechalacho, which we did with first ore blasted and crushing commencing in late June. We are completing commissioning of the ore sorter at Nechalacho and expect to ramp up to full production capacity by the end of July.

“We are so proud to become Canada’s first rare earths producer – bringing Nechalacho into production has been our ambition since Cheetah Resources completed its acquisition of the Upper Zone at Nechalacho in 2019.

“Other achievements such as the positive results from both drilling and metallurgical testwork for our Stage 2 operations have given us greater confidence that we can develop Nechalacho into a larger scale, long life rare earths operation and we look forward to creating a rare earths supply chain that can support the demand seen in North America and Europe.”

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