Positive Rare Earth Metallurgical Test Work For The Cowalinya Project

Heavy Rare Earths Limited (“HRE” or “the Company”) is pleased to report results from its metallurgical program on rare earth mineralisation from its 100 per cent-owned Cowalinya project in the Norseman-Esperance region of Western Australia.

• Particle size analysis reveals up to 90% of rare earths hosted in -25µm (target) size fraction in as low as 21% of bulk saprolite feed
• Rare earth grade increase of up to 299% in target size fraction
• Maximum rare earth grade of 3674 ppm TREO in target size fraction
• Metallurgical program now moves onto leach phase of target size fraction

This initial work by Perth-based Strategic Metallurgy (“Strategic”) has been completed on 13 four- and five-metre composite samples of rare earth-bearing saprolite from 10 drill holes across the Cowalinya South and North deposits. These samples represent a reasonable first-pass basis for discerning the geo-metallurgical variability of saprolite-hosted rare earth mineralisation across the Cowalinya project.

Taken together, the Cowalinya South and North deposits are the foundation of HRE’s maiden Inferred Resource of 28 million tonnes @ 625 ppm TREO (total rare earth oxide).¹

Strategic undertook particle size analysis on the saprolite composites to determine the rare earth distribution across a range of size fractions, from +0.5mm (sand size) to -25µm (silt and clay size). This work is to aid in the design of an upstream process flowsheet that removes gangue from the saprolite. For Cowalinya, that potentially involves the use of a deslime cyclone.

The sizing work by Strategic has shown that, on average:

• 78.5% of the rare earths are confined to the target size fraction of -25µm (range 66.3%-90.1%)
  
• The target size fraction comprises 37.2% of the bulk saprolite feed mass (range 20.8%-59.9%)
• The rare earth grade of the target size fraction is 116% higher than the bulk saprolite feed grade (range 23%-299%).

These results are summarised in Table 1 and illustrated in Figures 1 and 2. The distribution of rare earths across all size fractions is presented in Table 2.

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