Commerce Resources (TSX-V:CCE, StockForum), a Vancouver-based exploration stage firm engaged in acquiring, exploring, developing and evaluating mineral resource properties, released results from their limited 2013 sampling program at Eldor Property located in Northern Quebec.
The 2013 program mainly advanced the company's primary asset, the Ashram Rare Earth Deposit with an infill and step out drilling program carried out in the beginning of January, but the company also implemented a small prospecting and sampling regime targeting the tantalum-niobium potential of the Miranna Area.
According to the news release, Several very high-grade tantalum and niobium boulders were collected with one sample assaying 1,220 ppm Ta2O5, 15,700 ppm Nb2O5, 10.6% P2O5, and 0.46% TREO (enriched in the HREOs).”
Company officials celebrated the results as tantalum grades found during the sampling program where among the highest in the world where >300 ppm Ta2O5 in mining operations is considered high-grade and there is a potential for all four commodities to exist in sizable grade within the host body.
Commerce Resources president, Dave Hodge, commented, “Since the acquisition of the Eldor Carbonatite in early 2007, exploration has identified multi-commodity potential on this claim group. This was first realized with the discovery of the Ashram Deposit which now ranks amongst the world's largest REE projects.”
Hodge explained, “The truly significant aspect of these current results is the future exploration potential of the overall Eldor Carbonatite where other commodities, identified in boulders, soil surveys and outcrop, include: Niobium, Tantalum, Phosphate, Copper and Nickel.”
He then summed up, “These early stage results point out a clear long term direction for Commerce, in that when Commerce is successful in establishing industry partners to advance the Ashram Rare Earth Deposit, as well the Upper Fir Tantalum and Niobium Deposit into production, Commerce will have multiple targets to begin the process of exploration and discovery again on both claim groups in Quebec and British Columbia.”
Commerce Resources was in the news recently when the company expanded the rare earth mineralization at Ashram Rare Earth Deposit.
Shares climbed 20% on the news to $0.24 per share.
Currently there are 167.0m outstanding shares with a market cap of $40.1 million.