As US-based Chilean Cobalt Corporation works to earn 100% ownership of the NeoRe rare earths project in southern Chile, the company has completed a Phase 1 work programme and has actively started executing Phase 2.

The completion of the Phase 1 work programme marks an important milestone in Chilean Cobalt's evaluation of the project, satisfying the initial technical objectives under the earn-in and option agreement it has in place with NeoRE SpA.

Phase 1 included geological data collection, preliminary geological modelling and assessment of mineral continuity. Building on that foundation, Phase 2 will entail expanded exploration, metallurgical testing, engineering studies and permitting to support the project's continued development.

Chilean Cobalt confirms that exploration has now reached 2 000 m in the year-to-date through parallel drilling programmes.

At a pilot plant, "batch three" has entered processing while carbonate washing continues for the first two batches. Chilean Cobalt is working to maintain continuous production of rare earth carbonate concentrate at the pilot plant.

The company has also shipped initial rare earth carbonate concentrate samples to prospective US strategic processing and offtake partners for downstream testing and evaluation, which represents an important step towards validating the project's processing capabilities and supporting future commercial relationships.

Notably, Phase 2 of the exploration work on NeoRe includes mine conceptual engineering to establish a technical basis for future project permitting and evaluate development scenarios at production capacities of about 5 000 t a month and 10 000 t a month, respectively.

Chilean cobalt CEO and chairperson Duncan Blount comments that NeoRe's deposits are weighted towards the heavy rare earths such as yttrium, dysprosium and terbium, which the company will unlock towards a scalable Western supply chain for critical rare earths.

Meanwhile, Chilean Cobalt is also developing the La Cobaltera and El Cofre projects, in Chile, with the company having the backing of diversified miner Glencore as a future buyer of the cobalt- and copper-containing products produced from the mines.