Brazilian Rare Earths to accelerate Sulista exploration following standout results at West prospect

Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX: BRE) is preparing to accelerate exploration activities at its Sulista project area in north-eastern Brazil on the back of strong results from the Sulista West prospect.

The company’s phase 2 exploration program has confirmed the discovery of an ultra-high-grade rare earth elements (REE), niobium (Nb), scandium (Sc), tantalum (Ta) and uranium (U) deposit in a new district-scale mineralised corridor.

The new diamond drill results returned the highest uranium and tantalum grades since exploration at the project began in 2021, with hits of up to 8,211 parts per million uranium oxide and up to 2,803ppm tantalum oxide, also returning high-grade assays of up to 27,740ppm niobium oxide and 378ppm scandium oxide.

Monte Alto similarities

Chief executive officer and managing director Bernardo da Veiga said the results had identified Sulista West as similar in profile to the company’s Monte Alto deposit to the north.

“Monte Alto proved that our exploration pathfinder model could uncover world-class, multi-critical mineral rare earth systems [and] Sulista demonstrates this model’s repeatability across our extensive 180-kilometre province,” Mr da Veiga said.

“Our latest exploration results significantly reinforce our confidence that the Rocha da Rocha province has the potential to host numerous Monte Alto-style ultra-high-grade rare earth deposits with major implications.”

High-resolution surveys

To accelerate exploration, Brazilian Rare Earths is planning to conduct high-resolution drone-based geophysical surveys and comprehensive geological mapping across the project area.

Mr da Veiga said these surveys will help define a targeted step-out diamond drilling (DD) program specifically designed to test and expand continuity along strike with the new mineralisation that outcrops along the Sulista West trend to the north-east and south-west.

Further exploration work has discovered a new “outcrop ridge” with grab samples of up to 20.6% total rare earth oxides (TREO) collected across an exposed ridgeline located on strike 2.5km south-west of the Sulista West deposit.

Sulista East drilling

The company has also commenced a 3,000m DD program at the Sulista East exploration target 1.5km away.

Sulista East is characterised by extensive shallow, high-grade monazite sands with significant potential for underlying hard-rock mineralisation.

Initial drilling has already delineated a highly exploration area covering approximately 800m by 350m, confirming the +1% TREO mineralisation the company previously reported in holes that remain open at depth.

Exploration reconnaissance has established that Sulista East is highly prospective for REE-Nb-Sc-Ta-U mineralisation at depth, with 30 previously reported grab samples from weathered bedrock yielding grades of up to 16.5% TREO.