Venture Minerals Limited (ASX: VMS) - REE Drilling Ends In Mineralisation, Western Australia.
Coffee with Samso 174 with Andrew Radonjic is all about Venture Minerals building a Rare Earth Portfolio of projects in Western Australia.
It is no surprise that Venture Minerals Limited (ASX:VMS) is now adding Rare Earths to the portfolio. The creation of a Decarbonisation Mineral Exploration Portfolio makes complete sense.
Venture Minerals Limited
For those readers who have just come across Venture Minerals Limited, the best way to conceptualise the company is to see it as a Targeted Diversified Mineral Explorer with a very experienced Managing Director. Andrew Radonjic has the silver hair happening coupled with a very smart strategy.
I remind many readers that when I first interviewed Venture, I coined the term Targeted Diversified Mineral Explorer. There are many diversified companies but if you have been in this industry for a long time, you start to understand those that are real and those that are there for filling up space.
In that first interview, I started to realise that the diversified portfolio in their own right were good projects. Over the years and many conversations, in my opinion, are starting to create their own personality. The limiting factor is the fund allocation. In every business there are always budgets and Venture is no different.
The Building of a Western Australia REE project.
In the last Coffee with Samso, Andrew Radonjic, Managing Director of Venture Minerals mentioned, point out that the company has been looking at Rare Earth projects for a while now. The creation of a Western Australian based REE project does not surprise me at all (Figure 1).
What makes this portfolio different is the location. The nearest focus on the REE news has been in the wheatbelt which is still a distance away. I cannot think of anyone that is building a project near the Venture ground. The rising trend has been in the wheatbelt region of Western Australia which about 50km to 100km south of the current project.
Recap:
As we previously mentioned, the first mention was the discovery of REE within the Mount Lindsay project. This was first released on 20th September 2022. All the news releases are listed below.
Figure 1: Location of the new REE project for Venture Minerals Limited. (Source: Venture Minerals Limited).
Samso's Conclusion
It is no big secret that there is a REE bandwagon going around the Australian Stock Exchange, (ASX) at the moment. I have just been at the RIU Conference in Sydney and had a chance to talk and look at some of these projects. The common theme is that the majority of projects have come about from resampling of previous holes. There have been little understanding of the quality of the projects other than the assays.
As I have mentioned many times, my go to person for REE information has been Brett Hazelden from OD6 Metals Limited (ASX: OD6). In his latest video, he talks about the refractory nature of some deposits. When the company completed their latest metallurgical work, it became apparent that there is a distinction between deposit types. The distinction is based how easy it is to extract the REE.
In a simplistic explanation, the OD6 commentary is that the deposits which are highly weathered are more easy to extract. In the video he talks about how the deposits further away from the granitic source are more weathered.
Hence, when I look at the Venture annoucnement, what strikes me immediately is that there are two deep holes which ended in mineralisation. Could these drill holes have gone deeper? The grades look interesting as it is nearly 50m. There are resources out there being funded with grades around less than the historical intercepts announced by Venture Minerals.
The next point that strikes my interest is that the project is located in traditionally deeply weathered terrains. Some of the terrains are weathered in excess of 80 to 100m. If that is so, would the mineralisation had gone that deep? Are the troughs that span a distance which would act as a trap for the REE?
These are hypothetical observations and I am highlighting it because this is where I feel the project may have some good differences to the other REE projects in the market. For this reason, I encourage readers seek more information and if possible, seek out Andrew to get more information.
Tune in to Andrew's thoughts here.
Chapters:
00:00 Start
00:20 Introduction
01:10 The VMS Rare Earth story
04:25 The significance of the historical drill holes.
07:33 Venture Projects Potentially in New REE Province?
08:27 What makes the VMS REE story different?
14:41 Is VMS stretching resources to fund all the projects?
19:41 Thoughts on the geopolitical issue surrounding rare earths
22:56 News flow
26:49 Conclusion