ASX: MRD - Mount Ridley Mines
- Matt Birney
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Mount Ridley Mines: The largest gallium resource in Australia found hiding in old drill hole results
Mount Ridley Mines CEO Allister Caird on 3AW, 2GB, 4BC & 6PR Bulls N' Bears Report
Listen to ASX-listed Mount Ridley Mines CEO Allister Caird talk to Matt Birney on the Bulls N’ Bears Report about Mount Ridley’s enormous new gallium resource and the off-the-scale numbers gallium sells for.
TO LISTEN TO THE MOUNT RIDLEY MINES AUDIO INTERVIEW - CLICK BELOW
Mount Ridley’s stock ran a whopping 2000 percent recently after the company took another look at historic nickel and copper drill holes at its namesake project near Esperance in WA. That re-look resulted in the tabling of Australia’s largest gallium resource that set the market alight. The project is also well endowed with traditional heavy rare earths and is showing signs of other lucrative minerals like scandium.
RADIO INTERVIEW - TRANSCRIPT
Matt Birney - Welcome to Bulls N' Bears, brought to you today by Mount Ridley Mines, ASX code MRD. I'm Matt Birney, and I'm joined now by the newly minted CEO of Mount Ridley, Allister Caird.
Matt Birney - Hi, Allister.
Allister Caird - Hi, Matt. How are you?
Matt Birney - I'm good. Okay, so Mount Ridley’s stock ran a whopping 2000 percent recently after the company took another look at historic nickel and copper drill holes at its namesake project near Esperance in WA.
Matt Birney - That re-look resulted in the tabling of Australia’s largest gallium resource that set the market alight. The project is also well endowed with traditional heavy rare earths and is showing signs of other lucrative minerals like scandium.
Matt Birney - Okay, Allister, let's start with the gallium resource. Just how big is this thing?
Allister Caird - Yeah, Matt, thanks for that introduction. The gallium resource is extremely large. So 838.7 million tonnes at 29.3 parts per million gallium which results in total gallium of 24,584 tonnes. So yeah, exceptionally large.
Matt Birney - Yeah, sure is. What sort of area does that cover and how many different deposits does it stretch across and what's the biggest of them?
Allister Caird - So that covers three separate blocks; the central, northern and Mia prospects. They can be as long as 25 kilometres in length. The largest gallium is in our northern extension for 11,288 tonnes.
Matt Birney - What's gallium typically used for and how much does it sell for?
Allister Caird - So gallium is a critical mineral. So it's on the, right at the top of the USGS critical minerals list published in 2025. It's essential for semiconductors, LEDs, solar panels, and even 5G networks.
Allister Caird - So it's critical in sort of the AI EV markets and and especially in the clean energy revolution.
Matt Birney - What does it sell for?
Allister Caird - Sells for approximately $200,000 to $300,000 per tonne US.
Matt Birney - Now I understand this project also has rare earths in it. What rare earth does it have? And are they contained in a separate horizon to the gallium or interspersed within it?
Allister Caird - They are interspersed with the same gallium horizon. So it's in the laterite and saprolitic zones.
Allister Caird - We have both heavy and magnetic rare earths. So at our Keith prospect we have 3,949 parts per million total rare earth of which 64% of that is heavy rare earths.
Allister Caird - And then in the Winston prospect we actually have 2,005 ppm in the total rare earths and of that 45% is heavy rare earths and as you know heavy rare earths command quite a high price and they're right up there on the critical minerals list also.
Matt Birney - Yeah. Very quickly, we're out of time. I believe you might have some scandium in this project. How much does scandium sell for a tonne?
Allister Caird - Scandium oxide potential is huge and it could be as high as 600,000 US per tonne and we have noted scandium concentrations when we reassayed historical drilling result.
Matt Birney - Allister Caird from Mount Ridley Mines.
Matt Birney - Thanks for joining me on Bulls N' Bears and remember we're only here to give you information, not advice, which you should of course seek independently.
Matt Birney - I'm Matt Birney and this is Bulls N' Bears.
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