Barkly bags second NT Govt exploration grant

Recently listed Barkly Rare Earths has pocketed its second government grant in as many weeks, this time securing up to A$115,000 in co-funding from the Northern Territory Government to support expansion drilling at its namesake rare earths project in the top end.

The funding comes hot on the heels of a separate grant, also for A$115,000, awarded to the company just last week to advance metallurgical test work. Both grants were awarded under the Territory’s highly regarded Geophysics and Drilling Collaborations programme.

The latest non-dilutive funding will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the company and will help offset the costs of its planned 1200-metre drilling campaign.

The program will consist of 20 shallow stratigraphic holes drilled to a depth of 60m, designed to probe for mineralisation beyond the company’s existing inferred resource and generate geological data across its massive 5030-square-kilometre project area.

Barkly says the first holes are expected to be drilled in July, providing a near-term exploration catalyst for the company.

Barkly Rare Earths managing director Craig Wright said: “This co-funding offer recognises the technical merit and exploration potential of the Barkly Project, while reducing the Company’s cost exposure to an important phase of growth-focused drilling.”

Its flagship Barkly project, 350 kilometres north-east of Tennant Creek, hosts a shallow inferred resource of 40 million tonnes grading 2100 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO).

Notably, the high-value magnet rare earths – neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium – make up a hefty 34 per cent of the total resource. The magnet rare earths grade clocks in at an impressive 710ppm, a figure the company says matches or exceeds the total rare earths grades of other Australian projects that have already advanced to feasibility studies.

While grade is important, in the world of rare earths, it’s often the metallurgy that is the final decider. Barkly’s mineralisation is held in a sedimentary-hosted system of loose sands, a style that is uncommon in Australia but offers distinct advantages.

The deposit shows strong consistency over wide areas and being essentially mobile cover, requires minimal crushing and screening, pointing to a potentially low-cost mining and processing operation.

Barkly is wasting little time getting on top of its chemistry, with the first grant supporting a program to de-risk the project’s metallurgical flowsheet. The work has built on historical small-scale testing, which produced some impressive early results, inc