Owners of the Nechalacho project, east of Yellowknife, said they had “increased confidence in the deposit” as they issued a new estimate of the rare earths it contains.
The new mineral resource estimate, or MRE, updates an April 2024 estimate with the latest drilling results.
Estimates like these include three categories: measured, indicated and inferred.
If a resource is measured, that’s the highest confidence you can have that the resource is actually there to be mined. Indicated is the second-highest level of confidence. Inferred is the lowest level.
The new estimate reports little growth in the overall figures, but shifts a significant amount of resource from inferred to indicated.
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In other words, while the overall estimate didn’t move much, Vital says it has more faith in that estimate than it did before.
“We now have more confidence that this is a truer representation of what this deposit holds,” Vital managing director and CEO Lisa Riley was quoted as saying.
Vital briefly operated a “demonstration mine” at a small rare earths deposit known as North T on the Nechalacho site. The company then underwent a change in managerial direction and is now trying to get a much larger open-pit mine off the ground at a separate deposit named Tardiff.
A much broader study of how that could happen, known as a scoping study, had been expected by the end of 2024 and is now “due for delivery in the coming weeks,” Riley said.
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The April 2024 mineral resource estimate included seven measured megatonnes (Mt) of rare earths, 24.1 indicated Mt and 181.6 inferred Mt, for a total of 212.7.
The new estimate includes 7.6 measured Mt, 41 indicated Mt and 144.1 Mt, for a total of 192.7.
Vital’s latest statement shows the company is starting work on whether it would eventually dewater Nechalacho’s Thor Lake and Long Lake to access the rare earths underneath. Alternatives could include underground mining.
The company is also in talks “with community stakeholders about the use of the current airstrip and camp as an outpost for remote travels as well as barge transportation services,” the update stated.
Nechalacho’s Tardiff deposit isn’t likely to turn into a mine in the immediate future. More drilling is planned for the next year or two.
Vital is trying to get the tonnage reported in the measured and indicated categories to a high-enough figure to justify the large sum that would have to be spent to begin a full-size open-pit mine.
The rare earths found at Nechalacho are used in the likes of electronics ranging from cellphones to vehicle batteries.
