Godolphin Resources Limited (ASX: GRL) has entered into a farm-in and joint venture agreement with EX9 Pty Ltd, providing Godolphin with the opportunity to earn up to a 75% interest in the Narraburra Rare Earth Element Project located 15km north of Temora in central west NSW.
The farm-in agreement was secured following a systematic review of the Rare Earth Element (REE) potential of GRL’s own projects and a broader review of the potential of the Lachlan Fold Belt to host economic REE projects.
Managing Director, Jeneta Owens, said the rapid advancement of Australian Strategic Materials’ Dubbo Project, and the encouragement by Australian Governments at State and National levels for the development of REE projects, makes the Lachlan Fold Belt through central New South Wales a premier location for the assessment and ultimate development of REE projects.
The Narraburra area was first explored for REEs associated with the Devonian-aged Narraburra Granite in 1999. It was later identified as one of Australia’s largest zirconium, REE and Rare Metal (RM) resources, which also contains significant amounts of lithium. It is listed as a critical minerals project by the Critical Minerals Facilitation Office of the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources and Australian Trade and Investment Commission and is a significant opportunity for Godolphin.
Narraburra is 30km from the GRL’s recently acquired Sebastopol target and 60km from its Gundagai Project.
“We are very pleased to have secured this agreement with EX9 to progress a farm-in for the highly prospective Narraburra REE Project.
“Importantly, there has been considerable historic exploration activity undertaken, which provides us with abundant initial data, upon which we can base the next phase of project assessment which we will now expedite. REEs are vitally important for the future growth of clean energy technologies,” Ms Owens said.
“Producing REEs in an ESG-compliant and stable jurisdiction like Australia will ensure a highly sought-after product by world markets.
“This new project complements our existing copper and zinc projects, which are also an important part of the greener technologies the world is increasingly accelerating towards.
“Furthermore, REE projects are being actively supported by both state and the national governments, so the farm-in on the Narraburra Project is a significant strategic move by GRL.”
Narraburra Rare Earth Element Project
The Narraburra Rare Earth Element Project is located approximately 340km west of Sydney and 15km north of Temora in central west NSW.
The farm-in and joint venture agreement includes two tenements, EL 8420 and EL 9258, and covers a total of 349 sq. km. Mineralisation is hosted in a fractionated, peralkaline intrusive complex of Late Devonian age.
Since 1999, there has been considerable exploration work completed on the Project, including airborne magnetic and radiometric surveying, geological mapping, ground radiometric surveying, bedrock geochemical sampling, whole-rock analysis, petrological and mineralogical studies, preliminary metallurgical testing and RC drilling. The programs confirmed significant occurrences of Rare Earth Elements (REE) (oxide is REO) including neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) and Rare Metals (RM) including zirconium (Zr), Yttrium (Y), niobium (Nb), hafnium (Hf), gallium (Ga) and lithium (Li). Thorium (Th) is reasonably low.
The Project has a previously reported JORC 2004 compliant Inferred resource, by previous owner Capital Mining Limited (ASX: CMY) not the Company, of 73.2M tonnes at 1250g/t ZrO2, 327g/t REO, 146g/t Y2O3, 126g/t Nb2O5, 45g/t HfO2, 54g/t Ga2O3 and 118 g/t Li2O.
For further information please visit: https://godolphinresources.com.au/
