American Rare Earths Completes 18-Hole Drilling Program, Plans Mine with 4.5 Million Tonnes Annual Capacity

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 29, American Rare Earths released its third-quarter activities report, confirming that 18 feasibility-study-stage core drill holes have been completed at the Halleck Creek rare earth project in Wyoming, USA, while advancing pilot-scale ore crushing and subsequent beneficiation testwork. The company's latest scoping study, released on September 30, raises the initial development scale of the Cowboy State Mine to 4.5 million tonnes of ore per year, with a planned mine life of 26 years.

The 18 drill holes are located in the project's Red Mountain zone and are primarily intended to supplement data required for geological modeling, mineral resource classification, mine design and subsequent feasibility studies. Assay results from the first six holes, announced on September 21, showed that approximately 93% of the tested intervals returned total rare earth oxide (TREO) grades above the 1,000 ppm resource cut-off grade, with an average grade of 3,497 ppm and a median grade of 3,879 ppm.

Among these, hole HC26-RM056 intersected 191 meters of continuous rare earth mineralization, while hole HC26-RM051 returned a peak TREO grade of 9,084 ppm over a 3.02-meter interval. As of September 30, assay results for the remaining 12 holes were still pending; the data will be used to update the orebody model, resource classification and mine development plan.

On the ore processing side, pilot-scale crushing initiated by the company in Wyoming has entered the physical processing stage. The pilot program involves institutions including Western Research Institute, DISA Technologies and the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) of Canada, and covers ore crushing, upgrading, leaching, impurity removal and rare earth oxide separation.

The company is also conducting larger-batch ore sample tests at Nagrom and has delivered a 40-kilogram concentrate sample to Novex in the United States for research into rare earth recovery and neodymium-praseodymium metal production. Under the previously disclosed technical schedule, gravity and magnetic separation tests are planned to continue in 2026, with separation of rare earth oxides targeted for completion by the end of the second quarter of 2027.

The latest scoping study for the Cowboy State Mine raises the initial annual processing capacity from 3 million tonnes under the 2025 plan to 4.5 million tonnes, and extends the planned mine life from 20 years to 26 years. The above scale remains a project study plan; the actual development scale and production timeline are subject to determination through subsequent feasibility studies, permitting and investment decisions.