Brockman project

The Brockman Project, located 18 kilometres south of Halls Creek in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia, is accessed via the Great Northern Highway, that links Wyndham, 380 kilometres to the north east and Broome and Derby about 450 kilometres to the west. The project consists of ten rare earths prospecting licences and an exploration licence that are held by Hastings Technology Metals Limited.

Brockman Rare Earths Project Getting Ready to Meet Growing Demand

Rare earths are minerals that are vitally necessary in the production of many industrial technologies and new consumer products coming into today's contemporary marketplace. They are widely used in products such as hybrid cars, power efficient light bulbs and flat screen television sets, as well as in wind turbines and military hardware.

Brockman Niobium Tuff Deposit Shows Great Potential

In 2011 Hastings Technology Metals Limited was primarily focused on exploring the Niobium Tuff resource at its Brockman project site, Drilling at that time revealed a JORC resource of 36.2 million tonnes containing 2151 parts per million TREO (Total Rare Earth Oxides). This resource included large resources of Gallium, Hafnium and Tantalum as well as HREO (Heavy Rare Earths Oxides) such as 3545 parts per million Niobium Pentoxide and 8913 parts per million Zirconium Oxide.

Hastings Technology Metals Limited engaged independent consultants, to carry out the metallurgical test work on the mineralisation samples it obtained in 2011, to back up and verify previous work undertaken by other exploration companies on the Niobium Tuff deposit. This included work carried out at a pilot plant established in Britain during the 1980's.

Brockman Southern Extension Deposit has Potential to Exceed That of Niobium Tuff

Further exploratory drilling was undertaken in 2014 at the Southern Extension of the Brockman Rare Earths deposit. This drilling program revealed a large ore body returning a slightly higher grade than that contained in the previously drilled rare earths resource area. The drilling program supplied samples of wide intersections containing grades similar to those discovered in the Niobium Tuff deposit, the JORC estimate of this resource will be tabled in 2016.

Rare Earths comprises a group containing 15 elements known as the 'Lanthanides' that share similar characteristics. These Lanthanides often coexist with scandium and yttrium. Despite being named 'Rare Earths' they are actually rather commonplace, although it is not often they are found in sufficient quantities that allows economic mining to be undertaken.

There was little, if any, demand for rare earth elements before 1965. Most of the supply at that time was obtained from placer deposits in countries like Brazil and India , although, South Africa was the world's leading supplier of monazite back in the 1950's. There was also a small amount of Precambrian carbonate being produced in California during this early period.

China Currently Leads the World in Rare Earths Production

The demand for Rare Earths grew dramatically during the 1960's following the advent of colour television, as the rare earths element, Europium, is an essential element used in the production of colour images. Early demand for Europium was mainly supplied from the Californian Rare Earths Mountain Pass mine. China entered the market during the early 1980's and by the 1990's had become the world's leading supplier.

The Australian ASX listed company, Hastings Technology Metals Limited, was formerly known as Hastings Rare Metals Limited.