Vital Metal Ltd. Jan. 24 provided an update on its exploration and development strategy for the Nechalacho rare earths project in Northwest Territories.

The Australia-based company began mining rare earths from a small, high-grade deposit at Nechalacho in 2021. However, technical and financial difficulties led Vital to rethink its previous strategy to establish a relatively small mine at Nechalacho and rare earths processing plant in Saskatchewan.

Upon completion of a strategic review, the company opted to refocus its efforts on Tardiff, a near-surface deposit at Nechalacho with 119 million metric tons of resources averaging 1.4% (1.67 million metric tons) total rare earth oxides.

"Vital believes Tardiff is a world-class rare earths asset, having both size and grade that offers a differential value proposition to operate at a material scale to build into a North American rare earths supply chain for multi-decades," said Geordie Mark, who was named managing director and CEO of Vital Metals in October.

Following its decision to focus on Tardiff, Vital turned to Shenghe Resources Holding Co. to help fund the work needed to carry out the exploration and design work for a larger mine at the deposit.

This funding is being provided under a November agreement with Shenghe to invest up to A$14.8 million (US$9.4 million) to buy an 18.2% stake in Vital in two tranches, and a December agreement for the China-based company to buy the high-grade rare earth stockpiles from Vital's previous mining at Nechalacho.

The revitalized company is now setting in motion its new strategy.

"The tabling of our new strategy for the conservative development of a large, longer life rare earths operation on Nechalacho provides us a template to engage with our local stakeholders where we envisage the potential of the project over the short and long-term," Mark added.

Scoping larger Tardiff mine

To execute the larger mine strategy, Vital Metals drilled 74 holes in and around the Tardiff deposit in 2023.

So far, Vital has reported results from 40 of the holes drilled last year. Highlights from the 2023 holes reported so far include:

• 81.85 meters averaging 1.6% total rare earth oxides from a depth of 8.2 meters.

• 33.45 meters averaging 2.2% TREO from a depth of 47 meters.

• 31.76 meters averaging 2.1% TREO from a depth of 34.2 meters.

• 23.85 meters averaging 2% TREO from a depth of 9.2 meters.

• 15.5 meters averaging 2.7% TREO from a depth of 30.5 meters.

• 14 meters averaging 2.8% TREO from a depth of 76 meters.

"We are pleased and encouraged with the continued positive results from Tardiff, which will inform our future drill targets and processing testwork," said Vital Metals Vice President of Exploration Natalie Pietrzak-Renaud.

Once the assays from the remaining 34 holes are received, Vital plans to incorporate the results from the 2023 drilling into an updated resource estimate for Tardiff, which is expected to be completed by the end of March.

The updated resource will be used as a basis for a scoping study that will provide a first look at the economic and engineering parameters of developing a mine at Tardiff.

As part of this early design work, the company is carrying out trade-off and characterization studies to examine the benefits of selective ore sorting and flotation techniques to recover the rare earths from Tardiff.

"We are focused on delivering the first economic study on the upper Tardiff deposit, and this will be informed by a combination of detailed geological and process flowsheet work to augment and de-risk study outcomes," said Mark.

Exploring the bigger picture

As engineers begin to look at potential mine designs, the geological team is planning for further exploration in 2024.

This year's exploration at Nechalacho has three primary objectives:

• Continued resource expansion and definition drilling at Tardiff.

• Exploration drilling of other higher-grade rare earth targets at Nechalacho.

• Explore for and drill lithium-bearing pegmatites identified on the property.

Vital Metal Ltd.

Nechalacho is found within the lithium-rich Yellowknife Pegmatite province that extends east from NWT's capital.

"The geological potential of the area remains undertested and we aim to target the expansion potential of shallow higher-grade mineralization, as well as examine undrilled lithium-bearing pegmatites on the project area over the course of the year," Mark said.

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Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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