Altona Rare Earths (ANR ) has commenced exploration drilling at its Monte Muambe Project in Northwest Mozambique, in the Tete Province, to evaluate the asset’s value and potential.
The Aquis-listed rare earths mining company said the Phase 1 drilling will entail 39 holes drilled for a total meterage of 3,000m, across six carefully selected rare earths targets.
The programme is being divided into two parts; diamond drilling of 4 holes (one inclined and three vertical) for a total meterage of 550m, producing solid cores at 1m intervals; and reverse circulation drilling of 35 holes (six vertical and 29 inclined) for a total meterage of 2,450m.
Altona said it is undertaking the drilling programme in order to improve the understanding of the geological model through repeating selected historic RC holes in diamond drilling as well as to check the lateral extension of REE mineralisation encountered in historic RC holes.
Another objective of drilling will be to test four new targets selected by our geologist team based on available data and with a focus on areas with potential for deep weathering of carbonatites, which is known as an enrichment factor in carbonatite-hosted REE deposits.
CEO OF Altona Rare Earths, Christian Taylor-Wilkinson, said: “Within three months of acquiring Monte Muambe, we have obtained all the necessary permits, assembled a world class team and now commenced a drilling programme at our first rare earths mining project.
Addressing shareholders, he said the first cores from the diamond drilling have now been recovered and that Altona will be posting updates on its website over the coming weeks.
Last month, Altona Rare Earths announced that it had raised £1.25m through a ‘significantly’ oversubscribed placing, enabling it to both accelerate and expand its activities in Africa.
CEO, Christian Taylor-Wilkinson, said the additional funds will enable Altona “to both accelerate and expand our activities, to find and develop valuable rare earth mining assets in Africa, of which we already have one underway and several others under consideration.”
Earlier this year, the Company acquired up to 70% ownership in the Monte Muambe Rare Earths project, marking the business’ first asset in the rare earth elements mining sector.
Altona noted in its recent 1H21 results that it was looking to complete its proposed listing on London’s main market by the end of 3Q21 whereby it intends to raise funds upon listing to provide up to 18 months working capital, based on exploration work on two projects.
Altona said it believes this listing will bring “major advantages” to its acquisition programme and will enable it to benefit from the development of its rare earths mining projects. Altona is operating within the rare earth metals sector, which is among the fastest growing mining industries, with technology metals amongst the most in-demand elements globally.
Altona’s focus lies in Africa where it believes the combination of opportunity, its expertise and network provide it with “the ingredients to take full advantage of this growing, global demand.”
Overall, Altona believes that rare earths mining companies in Africa could develop and start supplying technology metals efficiently to the world’s green industries in under three years.
Altona said it believes this statistic is only likely to grow as the world moves towards being more environmentally conscious with more players starting to fulfil its “green” potential.
As a result, it believes it is now poised at the juncture of a significant opportunity within the rare earth metals sector which the group hopes to capitalise during this year and beyond.
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