Cobra Resources – Rapid Development Pathway for REE Project of Strategic Value

Cobra Resources plc is advancing the Boland Rare Earth Element (REE) Discovery, located in South Australia (Figure 1).

Source: Cobra Resources

REE’s were first discovered at the Boland Prospect in June 2023, as part of a reconnaissance aircore drill programme undertaken by Cobra.

Cobra quickly recognised the significance of the discovery as a paleochannel deposit. Paleochannels are essentially ancient river channels, that can contain secondary deposits of gold, tin, diamonds, uranium and REE.

In uranium and REE paleochannel deposits, these elements have been leached out of surrounding rocks over millions of years and are absorbed by secondary clay minerals deposited in the river beds.

Why are Paleochannels Important?

REE-mineralised paleochannels while normally lower-grade than primary deposits, can be laterally extensive and importantly because they are contained within clays they can be extracted by ion exchange (Ionic REE). Ion exchange is a low-cost method of REE extraction that can only be used on this type of REE deposit.

Where the parent rock is rich in heavy RRE (HREE) such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, the paleochannel deposits can also have a corresponding high HREE content. HREE are used in high-tech industries, and they are high-value metals. In addition, most of the HREE supply comes from China, making any significant deposits outside of China, strategic assets.

This is very encouraging for Cobra, low operational costs combined with a high-value basket of REE, would mean a high-margin operation. Still, the benefits of paleochannel mineralisation don’t stop there.

Why is In-Situ-Recovery Important?

Paleochannel mineralisation can also be extracted by in-situ-recovery methods (ISR). ISR is when the metals/elements are leached out of the host material through chemical processes, which use boreholes to introduce the leaching agent (lixiviant) and boreholes to extract the pregnant (REE-bearing) solution.

ISR has been used successfully for decades within similar geological conditions to recover uranium in South Australia and other geographies.

This method of extraction does not require expensive mine development, drilling and blasting, crushing and grinding or even a mining fleet, so there are capital cost savings as well as operational cost savings.

IRS projects can also have better environmental credentials as there is very little disturbance compared to a large open pit or underground operation. The lixiviant used to leach the REEs can be comparable to orange juice in terms of acidity and is normally only used on deposits where there is an impermeable layer above and below the mineralised channel to contain the lixiviants.

All these factors add up to make REE projects suitable to IRS economically attractive.

Recent Developments

Cobra has recently completed bench scale ISR trails, which demonstrated 50% Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) and 48% valuable Magnet Rare Earth Oxides (MREO) could be recovered. Recoveries of up to 84% Neodymium and Praseodymium (NdPr) and 88% Dysprosium and Terbium (DyTb), which are the critical rare earths important to the energy transition were also demonstrated. This test work is ongoing and recoveries are expected to increase.

This test work also demonstrated low lixiviant consumption and the creation of a product with low levels of impurities.

Cobra has also capitalised on its first mover advantage since its discovery at the Boland Prospect by regularly expanding its ground holding to its current level of over 5,200 km2.

What’s Next?

The shallow nature of REE mineralisation at the Boland Prospect, 26-28 m below the surface, means that a programme of around 10,000 m of sonic core-dominated drilling could potentially cover a large proportion of the target for a low cost of around ￡1 million.

With two rigs completing around 300 m per day, this could be completed by the end of the year, with a maiden mineral resource estimate produced by the first quarter of next year. This will feed into a scoping study that will give us the first taste of the project's potential economics three to six months after this - a rapid development pathway.

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