Northern Uranium (ASX: NTU) is an established Australian exploration company primarily focussed on Uranium and Rare Earth exploration and development in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Lynas Corporation lands on Northern Uranium share register
Rare earths developer Lynas Corporation (ASX: LYC) has popped up on the share register of Northern Uranium (ASX: NTU) acquiring 9,509,366 shares in on-market purchases in three tranches at prices of $0.12 to $0.135 per share on 19 August 2010.
The share purchases provide Lynas with a key 9.44% substantial stake in Northern Uranium.
Interestingly, on 9 August, 2010 Northern Uranium announced it had signed a binding letter of intent with Jiangsu Eastern China Non-Ferrous Metals Investment Holding Co., Ltd, an affiliate of East China Exploration & Development.
Subject to approval from Northern Uranium shareholders, ECE will invest about A$15.7m in Northern Uranium at a share subscription price of A$0.145 per share.
Northern Uranium owns the Browns Range Rare Earths project which previously formed part of the Gardiner-Tanami Project, but since 2009 has become a focus for the company’s rare earth element (REE) exploration program.
The project consists of two granted exploration licenses and one tenement application. The tenements cover an area of 400 km2 within Western Australia, located adjacent to the WA/NT border approximately 150 km southeast of Halls Creek.
Results achieved to date by Northern Uranium at its heavy rare earths project would not have escaped Lynas.
A total of 59 rock chip samples were collected from the Browns Range area, with 11 returning assays with TREE+Y greater than 1% and up to a maximum of 7.95% TREE+Y.
REE distribution is dominated by high value Heavy Rare Earth Elements (HREE), with 65-75% of REE’s being Heavy REE for all except one of the anomalous samples.
Based on the results and the latest Rare Earth prices for oxide FOB China, the range of value of the Brown Range xenotime mineralisation from the above table is US$547 per tonne to US$5,727 per tonne. This is largely due to HREE being over ~70% of all REE in samples.
