Vital achieves 26% increase in Tardiff Mineral Resource tonnes and 19% increase in contained NdPr

13 February 2023

Highlights

  • Updated Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) for the Tardiff Upper Zone (“Tardiff”) at Nechalacho achieves a 26% increase in Mineral Resource tonnes and a 20% increase in total rare earth oxides (“TREO”) tonnes
  • Tardiff is estimated to contain 1.67 million tonnes of TREO within a total mineral resource of 119.0 million tonnes at 1.4% TREO
  • Tardiff is estimated to include 416,000 tonnes of neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), a 19% increase over the previous MRE estimate dated 13 December 2019
  • Vital will commence drilling at Nechalacho this month, aiming to infill the Tardiff deposit to increase confidence in the Inferred component of the MRE
  • Vital aims to develop Tardiff to become a large-scale, long-life rare earths producer; initial economic assessment for Tardiff due in Q3 CY23

Vital Metals’ Managing Director John Dorward said: “With a contained NdPr endowment of more than 416,000 tonnes, this updated MRE for the Tardiff Deposit underlines the global significance of the Nechalacho Rare Earths Project. This is why we recently sharpened our focus towards advancing these critical minerals in the Western World and responded extremely well to the drill bit in 2021 and 2022. We are excited to be launching our follow up drilling program in the current field season and look forward to reporting results over the coming months.”

Canada’s first rare earths mining company Vital Metals Ltd (ASX: VML l OTCQB: VTMXF) (“Vital”, “Vital Metals” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce a substantial increase in the Mineral Resource Estimate for its Tardiff Upper Zone Deposit (“Tardiff”), which forms part of the Nechalacho Rare Earth Project (“Nechalacho” or the “Project”), 100 kilometres south-east of Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Vital has updated the MRE with the incorporation of 4,483 metres of drilling from 66 holes drilled over the 2021 and 2022 drilling seasons. Total MRE tonnage (across all classifications) has increased by approximately 26%, with a slight reduction in TREO grade of approximately 4%.

The Company holds a 100% interest in the minerals located on the mining leases at Nechalacho between the surface topography and the depth limit of 150 metres above sea level (“ASL”), or approximately 90 metres below surface, known as the Upper Zone. The material below 150 metres ASL is referred to as the Basal Zone and is retained by the original owner, Avalon Advanced Minerals Inc. (“Avalon”).

Key points

  • Vital achieved the MRE increase due to re-interpreting the cut-off grades for the resource and the inclusion of Tardiff Zone 2 area in the resource and the inclusion of an additional 4,483 metres of drilling from the 2021 and 2022 campaigns;
  • Vital selected a cut-off grade percentage of the full suite of rare earth oxides as opposed to the previous practice of using an Nd2O3 based cut-off value;
  • the MRE was interpolated using Ordinary Kriging;
  • 5,500 metres of drilling is planned for the 2023 field season at Nechalacho with a focus on increasing confidence in the current MRE with additional infill drilling; and
  • additional exploration drilling will be focused on assessing the potential to increase North T’s resources through extension drilling and testing other potential satellite targets.

The Tardiff MRE was compiled and is reported in accordance with the Australasian Code of Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC 2012 edition) and Chapter 5 of the ASX Listing Rules.

Read full 60-page release here.

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