HIGHLIGHTS:
Peak Resources Limited ("Peak" or the "Company") connue to progress the development of its 75% owned Ngualla Rare Earth Project ("Project") with the following acvies occuring during the Quarter:
• Meeng with the newly appointed Tanzanian Mining Minister
• SML recommended for approval by the Mining Commissioner to the Minister
• Further producve visits with potenal off-take partners
• Testwork programs validate and provide potenal for further Project opmisaon
Meeting with the newly appointed Minister of Minerals
In early January 2019 the President of Tanzania, Dr John Magufuli promoted the deputy Minister of Minerals Doo Biteko to Minister. Mr Biteko replaces Angellah Kairuki who has been appointed Minister of State to the Prime Minister's investment office. Stanslaus Nyongo who, alongside Mr Biteko, was also a deputy minister under Madam Kairuki will remain as sole Deputy Minister.
The Company has an excellent on-going relaonship with the new minister from dealing with him in his capacity as deputy minister and is confident that there will be good connuity between the outgoing and in-coming ministers.
The Company's Tanzanian Commercial Manager, Ismail Diwani met with Hon Biteko on 15 January to congratulate him on his appointment and to expedite the issue of the Special Mining Licence (SML). The Minister confirmed that he "understands the urgency of the SML" and he will "play his part to push this as swiſtly as it can get". The Minister stated that his office has received the approved applicaon from the Mining Commission and the planning team of the Ministry is preparing the relevant Cabinet Papers.
A follow up meeng between the Minister and Peak's execuve has been set for early February.
SML recommended for approval by the Mining Commission
The Tanzanian Mining Commission has confirmed to the Company that they are sasfied with the applicaon and supporng documents received and has recommended the licence for approval to the Minister of Minerals. The Minister is required to seek cabinet approval prior to the SML being granted. The final informaon submied to the Commission included a strategy and commitment to explore and potenally develop the other commodies that have previously been idenfied within the Ngualla licence area. These commodies include Fluorspar, Barite, Niobium and Phosphate, details of each are included below.
ENABLING LOW CARBON TECHNOLOGIES
DIRECTORS
Non-Execuve Chairman: Peter Meurer
Non-Execuve Directors: John Jeer
Jonathan Murray Darren Townsend Tony Pearson
Chief Execuve Officer: Rocky Smith
Company Secretary: Graeme Sco
CORPORATE DETAILS
AS AT 31 Dec 2018:
Ordinary Shares on issue: 799.3m
Listed Opons:
PEKOC $0.06 14 Jun 2020: 61.1m
52 week range: 2.5c - 6.4c
Market Cap: $22.7m (at 2.6c)
ASX: PEK
Peak Resources Limited Ground Floor, 5 Ord Street, West Perth, WA 6005.
PO Box 603, West Perth 6872.
ASX: PEK ACN: 112 546 700
Telephone: +61 8 9200 5360info@peakresources.com.auwww.peakresources.com.au
Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 5B
December 2018
Fluorspar
A Fluorspar occurrence has been discovered in the fenite rim around the carbonate body at Ngualla as shown in the plan below. To date work undertaken includes trenching and rock chip sampling in early stage exploraon to assess the deposit. The rock chip sampling of outcropping mineralisaon was encouraging and assayed up to 96% fluorspar.
The available trenching data is at a very early stage of evaluaon and does not allow for a JORC Mineral Resource or an Exploraon Target status at present. The Company does however believe that the occurrence is large enough to warrant future further exploraon. (Refer ASX announcement of 20 February 2017 tled "Wide zones of high grade fluorite idenfied at Ngualla")
As shown in the Figure 1 the fluorspar occurrence occurs well outside the Rare Earth mining and infrastructure. The idenfied fluorspar mineralisaon potenal will not therefore be impacted by the rare earth mine.
Figure 1 - Locaon of trenches reported in relaon to rare earth mineralisaon in the centre of the Ngualla Carbonate Complex and fluorspar and rare earth zones discovered to date within the fenite alteraon zone
The Company's intenon is to connue exploraon on this occurrence following the development of the rare earth operaon. Profits from the Rare Earth mine will partly be used to fund this exploraon. Infrastructure built for the rare earth mine will assist in making a potenal mining operaon economic.
Barite
The weathered bastnaesite zone that is the primary resource to be mined at Ngualla is comprised of approximately 40% Barite. Over 90% of the Barite that is planned to be mined at Ngualla as part of the Rare Earth operaon reports to the first tailings stream of the rare earth plant. This stream comes from the barite pre-float circuit with a grade of approximately 90% and would therefore be suitable as drilling mud. At the current projected mining rate this equates to approximately 200,000 tonnes per annum of Barite being produced from the planned processing plant. To ensure that the barite resource is not lost the tailings dam at Ngualla has been designed with separate cells for the Barite stream. (Refer to ASX announcement of 2 March 2017 tled "Ngualla Mineral Resource esmate re-stated to include barite" for details).
Figure 2 - Plan view of maximum down hole Nb2O5 in the Southern Rare Earth and Northern Zones of the Ngualla Carbonate showing niobium - tantalum inersecons highlights. Mineralisaon remains open to the north, south and west.
Phosphate
Phosphate occurrences have also been detected over much of the Ngualla area. In fact it was the phosphate potenal that first aracted Peak to the Project. As shown on the plan below the phosphate mainly occurs outside the rare earth mining zone with the higher grades occurring in the northern zone. The phosphate potenal will not therefore be encumbered by the rare earth acvies.
Figure 3 - Plan view of maximum down hole phosphate in the Southern Rare Earth Zones of the Ngualla Carbonate showing phosphate intersecons highlights. Mineralisaon remains open to the north, south and west.
Niobium
Niobium occurrences have been detected over most of the area at Ngualla. The higher grade and potenally economic targets were intersected in drilling within the weathered carbonate to the north of the Bastnaesite Zone outside the rare earth mining zone and shown in the figure below. The relavely shallow <20m mineralisaon extends over 1km x 1km area. Mineralogy tesng by the Company idenfied pyrochlore and columbite as the primary Niobium minerals. These higher grade zones would be the focus of further exploraon acvies by the company aſter the development of the rare earth mine. Parcular aenon will be focussed on the magnec anomaly in that area. (Refer ASX announcement of 15 February 2010 tled "Final drill results received from the Ngualla Rare Earth Project").
The Company has made inial representaons to the management at the nearby Panda Hill project in Mbeya to invesgate the potenal for that company to process the Ngualla Niobium. Panda Hill have confirmed that this could be a possibility and the companies will connue to
work together to further explore this potenal.
Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 5B
December 2018
Concentraons over 20% P2O5 have been reported in the Northern Zone due to weathering of carbonate minerals. The weathering upgrades the grade from approximate 6% P2O5 average in Fresh Rock. It is these weathered zones in the north that show the most potenal for success and will be the focus of future exploraon to be undertaken aſter the rare earth mine is developed and operang. (Refer ASX announcement of 15 February 2010 tled "Final drill results received from the Ngualla Rare Earth Project")
The Mineralogy of the phosphate is primarily Apate in the Northern Zone, some Monazite in periphery of the Bastnaesite Zone. Apate is used to produce ferliser for the agricultural industry and is therefore of parcular interest to the local communies who are very reliant on farming.
The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new informaon or data that materially affects the informaon included in the market announcements referenced in this report and listed following: ASX announcement of 20 February 2017 tled "Wide zones of high grade fluorite idenfied at Ngualla", ASX announcement of 2 March 2017 tled "Ngualla Mineral Resource esmate re-stated to include barite", and ASX announcement of 15 February 2010 tled "Final drill results received from the Ngualla Rare Earth Project". The Company also confirms that all the material assumpons and technical parameters underpinning the mineral resources esmates in the ASX announcement of 2 March 2017 tled "Ngualla Mineral Resource esmate re-stated to include barite" connue to apply and have not materially changed.
Tanzanian Operations
The project office and site were closed in early December ahead of the wet season. The main operaons undertaken prior to the site closure include;
• Handover of the Iziro classroom and community projects
• Community Liaison with the local and wider Ngwala community
• Receive guests including government officials and potenal investors
Figure 4 - The Regional Commissioner for Songwe officially opens the classrooms at Iziro.
Community Social Responsibility
Peak takes its community and social responsibilies very seriously and is proud of its record to date. The projects undertaken in the past and the manner in which it engages with the local community has resulted in widespread support for the Project.
The construcon of two classrooms and a teacher's office at the Iziro local school were completed and handed over to the community in November at a formal ceremony. The ceremony was aended by the recently appointed Regional Commissioner for Songwe, Brigadier General (rered) Nicodemus Mwangela and other local dignitaries.
Testwork Programs Validate Use of Collector and Provides Potential for Further Project Optimisation
During the Quarter a limited testwork program was completed on the preferred collector idenfied towards the end of compleon of the Bankable Feasbility Study. The testwork validated and confirmed previous results which underpins a brief reagent opmisaon program, currently underway.
Marketing and Communications
During the Quarter member's of Peak's execuve team connued further engagement and visits with potenal customers. More of these potenal customers are growing to realise the need to have a more diversified supply of material including material sources that are independent of China.
Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 5B
December 2018
Market Update
China
The Ministry of Industry and Informaon Technology (MIIT) has published an update of their rare earth guidelines in which they confirmed that they will step up efforts to eliminate illegal mining, producon and smuggling of rare earth materials (main focus Myanmar) and will connue to encourage further downstream integraon of the industry.
The MITT made clear that the overall regulaon and supervision in the industry had improved, but illegal mining, smuggling and producon connued to disrupt "market order" and damage the interests of legimate enterprises. The MIIT confirmed that they will step up their efforts and in 2019 will focus on prevenng and stopping any illegal mining and illegal recycling acvies to ensure that unauthorized pracce and facilies are eliminated. This is important news as the recycling sector is a known channel for illegal material and including this sector under the supervision of the government represents a major change for this part of the rare earth industry. MIIT also confirmed that they will establish a "traceability system" to prevent buyers from using illegal materials and to ensure that producers do not exceed the governmental established quota. Non-law abiding companies will have their licences suspended.
The big 6 Chinese State owned enes (SoE) are execung the downstream integraon governmental agenda. Recently several of them have announced various investments in the E-mobility area and in parcular in the permanent magnet motor industry sector. For example, Xiamen Tungsten announced in December 2018 that is to build a Permanent magnet motor industrial park in Jimei District, Xiamen City.
The aforemenoned new Chinese regulaons and other industry announcements can be found on the Peak Resources website under "The Market - China" secon.
Australia/Malaysia
Lynas Corporaon had a limited output from their Malaysian Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in December 2018. The background to this was the need for them to comply with processing restricons which is part of their current Operang License. Since the beginning of 2019 normal producon at the LAMP has resumed. However, the long term future of the LAMP plant is uncertain aſter the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licencing Board (AELB) announced new pre-condions for the renewal of the operang license of the LAMP plant which is scheduled for renewal in September 2019. One of the main requirements from the Malaysian authories is that Lynas is requested to remove (export) certain waste from Malaysia. At the beginning of this year, Lynas has appealed against these requirements. The global rare earth community is following these events and developments with interest; Lynas is the world's major supplier of rare earths outside China and recent developments have shown how vulnerable the non-Chinese rare earth supply chain sll is.
Peak sees these recent developments as a confirmaon of our industry and market understanding. On the demand side we see connuous growth in the NdFeB permanent magnets sector supported by the global trend of the electrificaon of our society and on the supply side, we see that the regulaons in China are ghtening which is the main global supply base for this specific material - this represents the dichotomy facing rare earth customers. We believe that the global rare earth downstream community will need to revisit their rare earth sourcing strategies as these factors begin to impact on their supply chain and operaons. Diversificaon of the global supply footprint will be instrumental for the future success of the global NdFeB industry. The key will be to assure producon and raw material supply to maintain full operaons and profitability and at the same me to migate any operaonal and polical risk exposure.
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Peak Resources Limited published this content on 29 January 2019 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 29 January 2019 04:08:02 UTC