Critical and precious metals explorer Everest Metals (ASX: EMC) has unveiled a maiden mineral resource estimate at its Mt Edon project in Western Australia’s Mid West region, comprising 3.6 million tonnes at 0.22 per cent rubidium oxide and 0.07 per cent lithium oxide.
The company says the estimate will underpin a scoping study it has launched on the promising project and results are expected to be finalised by the end of next year’s March quarter.
Sitting some 420km north-east of Perth and 5km south-west of the State’s former gold rush settlement of Paynes Find, management says the resource contains a “world-class” component of 1.3 million tonnes at 0.33 per cent rubidium oxide and 0.07 per cent lithium oxide. The high-grade zone contains 56 per cent of the total contained rubidium tonnes at Mt Edon, which has 7900 tonnes of the “in-demand” critical mineral.
Everest says its initial resource is based on drilling along 400m of strike within a 1.2km-long pegmatite corridor on a granted mining lease comprising 192.4 hectares. Drilling has been conducted to a vertical depth of 140m below surface in determining the resource that has been defined by 61 reverse-circulation (RC) drillholes for 2779m.
The company notes that mineralisation remains open along strike to the north-east, the south-west and at depth, providing the potential for exploration upside and resource growth at the project. It has a 51 per cent stake in Mt Edon, but has the potential to take over the entire operation in a joint venture (JV) farm-in agreement with private company Entelechy Resources.
Our initial MRE will serve as a foundation for a mining Scoping Study, as the world-class scale and grade prompt us to move rapidly to complete this study in conjunction with ongoing rubidium extraction and purification testwork. We will finalise test work in Q4 CY24 to feed into the Scoping Study, which is due for delivery in Q1 CY25.
Everest Metals Executive Chairman and CEO Mark Caruso
Caruso says that while rubidium has had only a modest market to date, that has been more due to supply constraints rather than demand.
Management says the Mt Edon resource model shows geometry that suggests the site may favour an open-cut mining operation with the potential for a low stripping ratio. It also notes that increasing demand for rubidium has pushed the price to about US$1200 (AU$1778) per kilogram.
Everest is now planning its phase-two drill program for later this year or early in 2025 to expand the resource and it has already begun extraction work at the deposit for purification testwork purposes. Results are expected in the fourth quarter of this year.
The company will soon begin offtake negotiations with the aim of securing agreements by end of June next year for rubidium, which has been listed as one of 35 critical minerals by several countries, including the United States and Japan. The critical mineral has many high-tech applications, including the development of new communication and energy-conversion technologies.
It also has use in defence-military applications such as night-vision imaging, radiation detectors, radio electronic tubes and military infrared signal lights, in addition to aerospace ion-propulsion engines, fibre-optic communications, energy power generation and medical sedatives, tranquilisers and medications for treating epilepsy – among other varied uses.
Interestingly, researchers have recently proposed rubidium’s use for chemical storage within hydrogen batteries, which may expand the potential market for its usage.
In its quest for economic deposits of critical and precious metals across four interesting WA-based projects, continued hard-working exploration “yakka” coupled with a bit of luck could see Everest begin its climb to some significant success.
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