RareX Limited (ASX:REE) Managing Director Jeremy Robinson discusses progress at the Cummins Range rare earths project and a potential resource upgrade.
Tim McGowen: We’re talking today with RareX Limited (ASX:REE). It’s an ASX-listed company focused on developing rare earth deposits in Australia, including the Cummins Range Rare Earths Project in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It has an ASX code of REE and a market cap of around $28.5m. We have with us Jeremy Robinson, who is the Managing Director. Jeremy, thanks for your time.
Jeremy Robinson: Thanks for having us, Tim. Good to be here.
Tim McGowen: Now, rare earth seems to be in the spotlight at the moment. You have a number of gold companies finding rare earths. Rare earths actually isn’t that rare by nature, but there are a lot of different players in the space. RareX has been in the space a lot longer than others. How do you see this involvement of these other players into the space?
Jeremy Robinson: Yeah, you’re right. Rare earths has very much come into focus in people’s and investors’ attention recently. Seeing a lot of new so-called clay projects pop up. Every week there’s a new one. We’ve been in this space for the last five, six years. We took a view before everyone else did that rare earths is a sector you want to be in. We have one of the tried traditional projects in Western Australia, and we plan to put this one into production in the coming years.
Tim McGowen: Last week there was a critical mineral summit, and the Treasurer made the point that mining will underpin Australia’s position as a clean energy superpower. Can you make a comment on this, given your significant rare earths project?
Jeremy Robinson: Look, that’s absolutely the case. The government is very much in our favour in terms of helping us develop our projects now, specifically for RareX and where we’re at in our life cycle. It’s the Critical Minerals Development Program, which is under the Critical Minerals Facilitation Office, where there’s $50m available on a dollar-for-dollar basis to help us with our feasibility studies and our pilot plants, shall it come to that in the coming years. We’re busily preparing our application for when that program opens, and we expect it to open in about February, and we’ll be front of the queue for that program.
Tim McGowen: And, Jeremy, you made a couple of significant announcements this week. The first was your development and progress update from your Cummins Range Rare Earths Project. What were the highlights there?
Jeremy Robinson: Yeah, well, our project update that we put out last week really showed all the work we’ve been doing in the background with this project. Apart from drilling over the last 12 months, there’s been a hell of a lot of work put into both our approvals, our permitting, our metallurgy, our study work. So, a lot of that was around we’ll have a mining lease application that’s gone in this year. That’ll be approved probably next year with the help of our traditional owners. Environmental permitting is going ahead with some flora and fauna surveys. And some potential offtake for power in the Ord River Scheme as well, which will give us a nice green angle to our program. All the stuff in the background you don’t see, we’ve been working on, we thought we’d better tell our shareholders about it, and you’ll see us report on those milestones over the next six months.
Tim McGowen: The second announcement this week was in regards to your drilling results at the Cummins Range. Will these drilling results point to a resource upgrade?
Jeremy Robinson: Well, that’s right. This is the drilling we’ve been doing all this year. The assay turnaround has been a bit slower than we hoped, but our results are flowing through now. It’s another great intercept from the project, 300 to 400 metres at up to half a per cent rare earths. And look, this is all feeding into our resource upgrade, which we’re planning for next quarter. So, come March next year, this project will be very, very much larger and well and truly in the top three in Australia, and we’re very happy with the way the resource is moving forward.
Tim McGowen: And post the end of 2022, it’s been a tough year. 2023, what are some of the catalysts you’re looking to achieve?
Jeremy Robinson: Yeah, well the main one for us up front is a resource upgrade in March. Then you’ll have a mining lease application approval in June. We’ll probably rescope the size of our project, considering the resource is growing as well. But that’ll ultimately conclude in a prefeasibility towards the end of the year. And hopefully we’ll see an off-take at some point during the year as well. So, some very key catalysts for us in 2023.
Tim McGowen: Jeremy, nice to see you again. Thanks for your time.
Jeremy Robinson: Thank you.
