PERTH (miningweekly.com) - Rare earths miner Lynas has increased the mineral resource estimate for its Mount Weld project, in Western Australia, by some 37%.

The project is now estimated to host a mineral resource of some 23.9-million tons, grading 7% rare-earth oxide, for a total of 1.9-million tons of rare-earth oxide.

The existing rare-earth operation at Mount Weld is based on a mine plan covering a high-grade rare-earth-oxide zone in the centre of the Mount Weld carbonate, within the Central Lanthanide deposit (CLD).

Lynas said on Wednesday that a recent drilling programme in the western side of the CLD had increased the confidence levels in the resource with a large portion of the resource in the measured and indicated categories.

In the first half of this year, the miner would undertake metallurgical test work, pit optimisation and design work would also be carried out with the view to bringing some of the resources defined by the drilling campaign into the ore reserve.

The Mount Weld project also contained the Duncan deposit, which, while shallow, is open to the east and south-west, with a high likelihood that further drilling could increase the size of the deposit.

Preliminary metallurgical test work has begun on the Duncan deposit, to determine if the rare earths can be economically extracted from the mineralisation.

The Mount Weld mine had the capacity to produce some 33 000 t/y of rare-earth concentrate, which would be shipped to the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant in Malaysia.

The operation is estimated to have a life-of-mine of 20 years.
 

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