023-12-15 17:14 ET - Market Summary
by Will Purcell
Dr. Michael Gunning's VR Resources Ltd. (VRR) is applauding metallurgical work on apatite collected from its Hecla-Kilmer rare earth project in Northern Ontario, southwest of Moosonee and northeast of Kapuskasing. The apatite, enthuses Dr. Gunning, chief executive officer, contains most of the rare earth mineralization at the project, with an average concentration of about 7.3 per cent total rare earth oxides. About one-quarter of those oxides are the magnet oxides, led by neodymium oxide.
Dr. Gunning had plenty to say about the results. He led with a geological dissertation about the mineralogy, which he deems "crucial towards the economic viability of any rare earth elements deposit." And so, with both simple phosphate mineralogies and coarse-grained minerals, "Hecla-Kilmer is clearly headed down both pathways," the good doctor jargonized. Therefore, he and his crew intend to advance to phase II beneficiation studies early next year.
Dr. Gunning had plenty more to say -- and say it he did -- some of which was likely comprehensible by layman investors. The rest -- the talk of whole-core XRF, lithium-borate fusion ICP-MS geochemistry and the Hecla-Kilmer polyphaser igneous complex -- is apparently cause for excitement among academics at least. As for investors, well, VR Resources was unchanged at eight cents on 73,000 shares today.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gunning, his crew, and the now dwindling cadre of Internet cheerleaders are deep into their second month of silence about the company's Northway kimberlite project, just south of Hecla-Kilmer. Market enthusiasm for the much-ballyhooed Northway pipe carried VR's stock to a midsummer high of 34 cents, but the paucity of microdiamonds -- five minuscule sparklers from just over a tonne of rock -- and the great depth of overburden atop the kimberlite -- 240 metres -- are promotion killers.
And so, in October, VR Resources acquired more ground around its Northway project and Dr. Gunning and his crew proclaimed that "the Northway exploration strategy is now district scale." The over 32,000 hectares are deemed the potential host of a kimberlite cluster, so the company will prioritize magnetic targets to "initiate the permitting process for the first-pass drilling of new targets in the potential field" next year. Should the first-pass drilling come to pass, Dr. Gunning and his company will be presumably seeking pipes with far more -- and larger -- diamonds that are in kimberlite lying much closer to surface. In the meantime, rare earths now appear to be the promotion of choice.