Krakatoa publishes first rare earths mineral resource for its Tower prospect, part of Mt. Clere

Krakatoa Resources’ (ASX:KTA) WA-based REE Mt. Clere project has become the subject of a maiden mineral resource classification of 101 tonnes at 840ppm TREO, in an estimate that only covers some 20% of holes drilled on-site to date by the company’s exploration team. 

Krakatoa has been busy drilling away at the Tower prospect, part of the Mt. Clere project, with the company’s operations winning support from the WA state government in mid-October. 

Tower’s maiden resource comes to the fore after only 7 months of drilling at Clere; of likely particular interest to shareholders will be Krakatoa’s observation mineralisation starts at surface across parts of the Tower Prospect. 

Future upgrades to the resource are all but guaranteed to happen in the coming weeks and months. In this early-stage resource estimate, Cerium is the REE most present at Tower. 

Krakatoa noted “following delivery of the estimate, [we] will focus on discussions, development studies and growing the project in size and scale.” 

Offtake opportunities already on the radar 

“We will now continue to explore the Tower area further and look to increase the resource confidence as well as size, plus continue our regional exploration focus,” Krakatoa’s chief executive Mark Major said today, commenting on Tower’s first JORC estimate. 

“In parallel, we will advance the ongoing technical and metallurgical studies and look to commence baseline environmental and social studies with the vision to move toward production as quickly as possible.” 

“This puts us in a solid position to continue with our systematic exploration strategy and also commence strategic discussions with end users and industry groups related to potential development, funding, off-take arrangements, and downstream processing opportunities.”

Key high-value magnetic metals present 

Neodymium and Praseodymium; among the most expensive REEs (and all the more so due to inherent magnetism,) are both present in earlier results taken from Tower at Mt. Clere. 

Both Neodymium and Praseodymium are superior to other REEs due to applications in manufacturing permanent magnets, seeing both metals included in wind turbines, EV engine motors, and medical equipment. 

Rare Earths results often clump trace elements into parts per million (ppm) divisions, labelled under TREO. Within TREO counts, you then have MREOS, which stands for magnetic rare earth elements. 

MREOs, altogether, include: neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. 

MREO counts in Krakatoa’s latest results were present in concentrations “up to 0.20%,” a fairly standard result for clay-hosted REEs. The company does not meaningfully break down the data in a raft of some 15 other drill results announced today, which include: 

• 29m @ 0.11% TREO from 24m depth 

• 27m @ 0.12% TREO from 20m depth 

• 10m @ 0.21% TREO from 28m depth 

• 12m @ 0.23% TREO from 22m depth 

Lower concentrations are present at shallower depths, including near-surface. 

Krakatoa's six month charts

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