Barkly cranks up 10,000m rare earths drilling in NT Gulf

Barkly Rare Earths has shifted from planning to paddock action at its flagship Northern Territory rare earths project, mobilising for a 10,000 metre phase one primary reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign to materially expand its maiden 40 million tonne inferred rare earths resource south of Borroloola in Australia’s Northern Territory.

The company says it has locked in its fuel supply, civil and drilling contractors and a custom-built sampling system. It has also secured a second environmental mining licence and is getting early field work underway at its separate Buntine base metals project in the western NT, east of Halls Creek.

The Barkly drilling program is designed to chase extensions of the project’s existing 40Mt inferred mineral resource at an average grade of 2100 parts per million total rare earth oxide, or TREO, for 82,000 tonnes of contained rare earth oxides. The resource was reported above a 430ppm neodymium-praseodymium cut-off grade and sits within two optimised pit shells.

Management believes the rare earths mineralisation remains open laterally, with drilling between the two resource areas suggesting scope to grow the resource through a 20km corridor.

‘Mobilisation marks an important step for Barkly as we move into active field execution.’

The Phase 1 campaign will comprise 400 shallow holes averaging 25m depth and will target the company’s immediate central zone of interest, while also probing the enclosing intermediate zone and wider project area beyond those core priority areas.

The work will also collect sample quality and dry bulk density data to support future indicated and measured mineral resource studies. Barkly says the mineralised quartz sands are interpreted to have been deposited on the seabed in an ancient marine embayment, a setting it believes may support broad continuity of grade and thickness.

In practical terms, the campaign is now falling quickly into place. Barkly has contracted BP distributor Recharge Petroleum for bulk fuel, with an initial 30,000-litre diesel tank due for clearing and drilling work. Two civil contractors with three earthmoving machines have been engaged to form tracks and drill pads, while a multi-purpose rig is scheduled to start drilling on July 13.

Barkly Rare Earths managing director Craig Wright said: “This programme is designed to test the scale potential of the Barkly Project and support our objective of materially expanding the existing 40Mt Inferred Mineral Resource by testing mineralisation across the ~20 km corridor between the two existing resource areas.”

The drill rig will run the primary RC program to evaluate mineralisation continuity and will then convert to drilling twinned holes using air-core and 100mm core sampling to cross-check RC sample quality, measure dry bulk density, and further build Barkly’s understanding of the project’s stratigraphy.

The stratigraphic drilling is planned to test to a maximum depth of 60m to assess the interpreted rare earths-rich Cretaceous sediments and will also probe the underlying stratigraphy of the extensive Carpentaria and McArthur basins.

A custom sampling system, fabricated by Drill Sampling Technologies, is due to be fitted and tested next week to maximise recovery and minimise grade bias.

The mobilisation follows two recent funding wins for the company under the Northern Territory Government’s Geophysics and Drilling Collaborations Program.

Barkly secured up to $115,000 in non-dilutive co-funding for its stratigraphic control drilling and a separate $100,000 grant under the same funding program for metallurgical studies, which will include mineralogical characterisation, beneficiation and hydrometallurgical test work.

Barkly’s broader exploration pipeline in the NT has another active program, with reconnaissance mapping and rock-chip sampling now underway at Buntine.

That work is targeting polymetallic mineralisation over a 9km strike length, where historical rock chips have returned grades including 1 per cent lead, 1,760ppm cobalt, 7,100ppm nickel and 316ppm copper.

Barkly’s near-term news flow is now stacked across its drilling, metallurgy and Buntine field programs, with rare earths concentration and extraction testing ongoing, 10,000m of drilling results expected through the September and December quarters and a mineral resource update slated for the December quarter.

If the shallow rare earths horizon keeps running through the 20km corridor between Barkly’s two existing resource areas, the company could have plenty more room to grow. For now, the rigs are rolling, the pads are being lined up and the next round of data is not far away.

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