Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK) developing gold and rare earths projects

Meeka Metals Limited (ASX:MEK) Managing Director and CEO Tim Davidson discusses recent gold and rare earths results and the outlook for the next year.

Tim McGowen: We're talking today with Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK). It's got a market cap around $73 million. The company's a gold and rare earths company with a portfolio of high-quality 100 per cent-owned projects across Western Australia. We're joined by Tim Davidson, who is both the Managing Director and CEO. Tim, thanks for your time.

Tim Davidson: It's great to be here, Tim.

Tim McGowen: Tim, we see a number of gold companies changing their focus to include gold, of course, but also rare earths. What's driving this trend we've seen recently?

Tim Davidson: Well, I think there's certainly an appreciation of the prices for these rare earth metals going much, much higher, which is driving interest from an exploration perspective and companies' interest in picking up these projects. Now, saying that, with our projects specifically, we very much love the gold space, and that was what we built the business around, and actually what we were looking for down in the Albany-Fraser when we identified rare earths down there. So, we went down there looking for gold and found rare earths.

Tim McGowen: And you made a couple of significant announcements recently to the market during September. What's the significance of those announcements?

Tim Davidson: Both on the gold front and in the rare earth space, we got some fantastic gold results from our Murchison Gold Project. We've got 1.1 million ounces of gold in the ground there, and that's certainly looking like it's going to grow. So, the drilling results that we've got come from a prospect called St Anne's. Some of the results — 20m at 20g, 32m at 16g per tonne. So, very high-grade, shallow mineralisation outside of the mineral resource. And that's looking like it's growing very quickly, so that's fantastic.

And then from a rare earths perspective, we're getting some very high-grade results from our Circle Valley Project. And when I'm talking about high-grade, I'm talking about clay type, rare earth mineralisation, over 6,000ppm, or grams per tonne, or ppm total grade. And importantly for these projects, a really high proportion of those magnet metals. And within that, a really high proportion of the NDPR neodymium and praseodymium elements, which is what really drives the economics of these rare earth projects.

Tim McGowen: And, Tim, it's early days with your Cascade Project, your rare earths project there. Can you give us a bit more colour on how that's looking?

Tim Davidson: Yes, absolutely. Cascade is a very exciting opportunity for us. It has enormous scale potential. So it's ten times the land area of Circle Valley, which is where we originally discovered the rare earth mineralisation. We've got drilling over 1,000 square kilometres. So, enormous scale. There's tenure in the north, over another 1,000 square kilometres, which has high-grade surface samples that has never been drilled. So, a really exciting opportunity for us. And, just specifically, when we look at the metals that we're seeing at Cascade, very similar to Circle Valley, in that we're seeing the high grade in the magnet metals.

Tim McGowen: And, Tim, can you talk to the success of your metallurgical processing framework or timeframe?

Tim Davidson: The met is really the key part for all of these projects. It dictates how you go from the ore in the ground to a commercial saleable product. And, look, the first-pass met that we've completed was really positive. It shows a really high level of extraction of these elements using a weak acid leach. There's a lot more work that we need to do to finetune the metallurgical flow sheet and develop something that can be commercialised. That's what we're working through now. We know the steps we need to go through. We're working through that now. But very encouraged by the initial results, and certainly have a lot of things to focus on.

Tim McGowen: And if we're talking gold now, in terms of your Murchison Gold Project, you released a scoping study which delivered an eight-year mine life, and you've got a prefeasibility study due in the September quarter. What kind of mine life and gold resource are you ultimately targeting?

Tim Davidson: Yeah, that prefeasibility study, that's looking to increase the production profile compared to what we had in the scoping study. And that's looking really positive again. One thing that we're working through at the moment, as a business, is whether we delay that prefeasibility study — it was due to be released this quarter — whether we delay that until January next year. And that would allow us to incorporate a mineral resource for St Anne's, which we think is going to be very important and significant for the project. And that resource would be due to be released in December. So, one thing we're working through now, the study's ostensibly complete except for the inclusion of that St Anne's resource. So, whether we delay that by a couple of months and ultimately put out a much better result.

Tim McGowen: And, Tim, it sounds like you got plenty on. What have you got planned for the next 6-12 months?

Tim Davidson: Look, it's a very busy 12 months for us. And importantly, to that point, we're well-funded. So we've got a cash position of around $9 million, and that allows us to execute our plans with vigour, and really excited by the targets that we've got. So, from a gold perspective, we're drilling at St Anne's, that's looking very good. And, from a rare earths perspective, drilling at Circle Valley starting in January next year. That'll be a three- to four-month program. Again, with a view to put out a rare earth mineral resource. And while we're down there drilling for the rare earths, we'll also be doing some drilling for the gold, which is looking very exciting and something that's very worthwhile following up.

Tim McGowen: Tim, thanks for your time. We'll follow with interest.

Tim Davidson: Pleasure to be here.

Source: Finance News Network