Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. said May 15 that it will revive its Nechalacho rare earth elements project in Canada's Northwest Territories due to strong demand for magnet rare earths neodymium and praseodymium, which play major roles in clean-technology applications.
The company will assess Nechalacho's potential as a near-term, small-scale producer of concentrates rich in neodymium and praseodymium for export through a simple mining, crushing and optical-sorting operation.
Avalon said previous work on the property identified high-grade, near-surface neodymium mineralization associated with bastnaesite, a light rare earth ore mineral, in the North T deposit and Tardiff Lake zones of the Nechalacho deposit.
The known mineral deposits are all within the company's existing mineral leases, and Avalon is also renewing its land use permit for exploration work, which will include work on an extension of the airstrip at the site.
Work plans for 2018 through 2019 include confirming neodymium-praseodymium resources, preparing a scoping study, resampling certain historical drill core to analyze for lithium and continuing with permitting efforts. Avalon expects to spend C$100,000 on the work program in 2018.
