7 Sep 2016 07:00
Regency Mines Plc
("Regency" or "the Company")
Review of Motzfeldt Centre Project, Greenland
7th September 2016
Further to the announcement of 17 November 2014, and subsequent references in the Company's announcements, Regency has initiated a review of its Motzfeldt Multi-Element Project, covering the Motzfeldt Centre, Greenland, and contained within its license 2014/01 ("Motzfeldt Centre"), with a view to conducting further work that will give a comprehensive understanding of the composition and economic potential of the Motzfeldt Centre, most of which remains unexplored or lightly explored.
Highlights
· The Motzfeldt Centre Project includes a previously notified JORC Inferred Mineral Resource of 340Mt @ 120ppm Ta2O5, 4,600ppm ZrO2, 1,850ppm Nb2O5 and 2,600 ppm total rare earth oxides
· Resource contains a significant Tantalum Resource
· Other areas within the license with potential for mineralisation little explored
· Globally significant scale of existing Resource indicates further potential
Regency Chairman Andrew Bell commented:
"As the exploration and commodity markets moved inexorably towards their lows, the opportunity arose to pick up at negligible cost the massive Motzfeldt Centre Project, with its declared Mineral Resource and known exploration potential. We had in-house alkaline rock and Greenland exploration experience, and knowledge of the Motzfeldt area, so we seized that opportunity.
Demand for tantalum, niobium, and rare-earth minerals continues to increase.
Regency has always looked for projects where the potential for scale exists.
We were not in a position to do more last year than fund some academic fieldwork and sampling in the unexplored but accessible Swaldale area to the west of Qooroq fjord, near the Narsarsuaq international airport, looking at the petrological and geochemical characteristics and petrogenesis of the peripheral syenites in that area. Through this and other work new prospects have been identified besides the existing Resource area.
It is now time, in an improved environment, to find ways to progress the Project. We have over time received several expressions of interest in purchasing the asset, and have indicated terms on which we might consider disposing of all of our interest. We are now notifying all such parties that in the light of current interest we are reviewing our position. We have also established a data room and will be ready to engage with any parties interested in partnering with us on this asset."
Background of the Motzfeldt Multi-element (Nb, Ta, REE) Project, Greenland
The technical information contained in this announcement was previously disclosed in the Company's announcement of 17 November 2014, from which the following summary is derived:
Regency holds 100% of the Motzfeldt Centre multi-element (niobium (Nb), tantalum (Ta), rare earth elements (REE)) Project through its ownership of licence 2014/01 in southern Greenland.
The licence covers 555km2 of the Gardar Province in southern Greenland, host to three large REE deposits, including the important Motzfeldt Centre, a part of the Igaliko Nepheline Syenite Complex. The licence area includes a multi-element prospect believed by GEUS (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) to be one of the world's largest Ta deposits with a prospectivity identified by GEUS of 600 million tonnes grading 120 ppm Ta (high grade zones up to 426 ppm Ta) and 130 million tonnes grading 0.4-1.0% Nb2O5. The prospect has known and significant rare earth potential, requiring exploration.
The Motzfeldt Project is located 50km north-east of Greenland Minerals and Energy Limited's Kvanefjeld Project, considered to be one the world's largest rare earth resources with extensive additional resources of uranium and zinc.
The Motzfeldt area was first explored in the 1980s by GEUS who carried out regional chip sampling and a detailed helicopter-borne radiometric survey, identifying five radiometric anomalies over a 7km strike length, shown to be associated with tantalum-rich pyrochlore mineralisation hosted by hydrothermally altered syenite. Cabot Corporation carried out further work in 2001, including a 9 hole, 1,621m drill programme intercepting up to 18 metres @ 630 ppm Ta2O5 and 7,800 ppm Nb2O5.
On 27 April 2012 Ram Resources Limited (ASX:RMR)("Ram") made an ASX announcement of a maiden JORC Inferred Mineral Resource in one part of what is now Regency's Motzfeldt Centre Project, of 340Mt @ 120ppm Ta2O5, 4,600ppm ZrO2, and 1,850ppm Nb2O5 at a cut off operating cost of $60/t. Additional details are summarised in the table below:
Commodity | Ta2O5 | Nb2O5 | ZrO2 | TREO | U | Th |
Grade (ppm) | 120 | 1,850 | 4,600 | 2,600 | 70 | 120 |
Product (t) | 40,800 | 629,000 | 1,564,000 | 884,000 | 23,800 | 40,800 |
Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. All figures are rounded to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimate and any resultant apparent errors are not considered to be material (SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd).
A copy of the Ram announcement of an Inferred Mineral Resource may be found at http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20120427/pdf/425vdqmzhqgxp0.pdf
Figure 1 Map showing the 2014/01 licence area http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/1381J_-2016-9-6.pdf
For further information, please contact:
Andrew Bell 0207 747 9960 Chairman Regency Mines Plc
Scott Kaintz 0207 747 9960 Executive Director Regency Mines Plc
Roland Cornish/Rosalind Hill Abrahams 0207 628 3396 NOMAD Beaumont Cornish Limited
Jason Robertson 0129 351 7744 Broker Dowgate Capital Stockbrokers Ltd