Summit (ASX:SUM) look towards a rare earth resource at Stallion

Summit Minerals has received the final ten holes from Phase 2 drilling at Stallion and confirmed the widespread, moderately shallow, sub-horizontal nature of mineralisation lying open along strike and to the east at its rare earth project 200 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

With more strong results backing up its Phase 1 program, Summit now expects to be able to complete a maiden estimate once it has metallurgy results on hand and has identified the host of the rare earth minerals.

Summit Exploration Manager Jonathan King said the new results had confirmed the geometry of the mineralised blanket and built confidence in its ability to establish an oxide resource.

“The REO mineralisation is likely associated with an acid-soluble secondary phosphate or silicate mineral. Metallurgical testing, including mineral identification and liberation analysis, upgrading by simple beneficiation and acid leaching is underway, and the Company looks forward to potentially reporting its maiden resource once this phase of work is complete,” Mr King said.

Planning is now underway for another round of extensional and infill drilling while Summit progress metallurgy with mineral identification and liberation analysis, eyeing an upgrade by simple beneficiation using stronger digestions.

Significant results

Phase 2 (500ppm TREO cutoff):

• STR023: 9m at 1664.12 ppm TREO from 58m
• STRC017: 34m at 1021.8 ppm TREO from 37m
• STRC019: 31m at 1298.37 ppm TREO from 63m

Phase 1:

• STRC014: 23m @ 2,162.45 ppm TREO from 24m
• STRC012: 15m @ 3,088.84 ppm TREO from 39m
• STRC011: 17m @ 3,783.4 ppm TREO from 61m inc. 1m @ 1.52% TREO
  from 73m

Stallion REE

Stallion sits just north of the Queen Victoria Spring Nature Reserve which has restricted development of some of Australia’s most tantalising rare earth targets.

Past drilling by the Manhattan Corporation returned rare earth enrichments, and historic assays showed up to 2666ppm rare earth oxides from just 4 of the 17 rare earth elements.

Summit’s exploration has now backed up the project’s rare earth allure and confirmed that the project’s mineralised zone trends northward onto its adjacent tenement.

Phase 3 drilling is directed at expanding the mineralised zone onto Summit’s next-door territory as the company looks to bring in its maiden rare earth resource.

Phase 2 drilling results