Hudson Resources completes phase two drill program in Greenland, intersects 6.5% TREO

Hudson Resources (CVE:HUD) announced Thursday it completed its phase two drill program on its wholly owned Sarfartoq rare earth element (REE) property in Greenland, where it intersected up to 6.5 percent total rare earth oxide (TREO).

The phase two program consisted of a total of 16,514 metres throughout 71 infill and step-out drill holes on the property.

On the ST1 zone, the company drilled 4,888 metres. It also drilled 1,858 metres in the periphery to the ST1 zone, and another 1,450 metres on the ST19 zone, located about nine kilometres southeast of ST1.

The highest grade assay returned 6.49% TREO over 8.0 metres in hole SAR11-71, which lies on the north end of the ST1 zone, well outside of the current resource model, Hudson said.

Meanwhile, hole SAR11-58 intersected 22.0 metres at 3.95 percent TREO, and hole SAR11-62 returned 8.0 metres averaging 4.91 percent TREO.

President James Tuer commented: "We are very pleased with the results from our 2011 Phase Two drill program. We have now demonstrated that the mineralization extends to the northeast and have intersected some of our highest grade material as we move in that direction.

"A step out hole almost a kilometer north of ST1 intercepted some of our highest grade material to date and confirms the exploration potential of this largely untested Sarfartoq carbonatite.

"Now that all of our 2011 drill results are in we will be working towards preparing an updated resource model in the coming months.

"Based on this year’s results, we expect to be able to move resources from the inferred to indicated category and increase the overall grade of the resource."

Indeed, the preliminary economic assessment for the Sarfartoq property, which is being carried out by Wardrop is now expected for completion within the next two weeks.

Currently, the company has outlined an NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate of 14.1 million tonnes at 1.5 percent TREO in the inferred category.

Hudson also said it plans to develop the resource as a mine for neodymium, a common REE that has several applications - it is a popular additive in glasses, and is a component in alloys used to make high strength neodymium magnets, a powerful permanent magnet for products like microphones, loudspeakers, in-ear headphones and computer hard disks.

Neodymium is currently priced at $240 per kilogram outside of China, and $145 per kilogram within China.

On the TSX-Venture, Hudson share prices rose six percent to $0.53, as of 1:55 pm EDT.