Private investors are being handed the opportunity to get first access to four compelling rare earths companies prior to the doors opening at the PDAC 2013 mining conference in Toronto.
Our next One2One Investor Forum will come in the form of our annual Rare Earth Power Breakfast, to be held on Sunday, March 3rd, at the InterContinental Toronto Centre Hotel, 225 Front Street West - Caledon Room.
It promises to be an interesting affair, with four compelling rare-earth investment opportunities on hand for attendees.
The four firms, Frontier Rare Earths (TSE:FRO), Montero Mining & Exploration (CVE:MON), Greenland Minerals and Energy (ASX:GGG) and Great Western Minerals Group (CVE:GWG), will make a 20 minute pitch, and investors will be given the opportunity to meet the directors of each company after the event.
In six years, Proactive has organized more than 300 events and introduced investors to some of the stock market’s best-performing stock market listed companies.
There will be a complementary continental breakfast available from 7:00am, with the presentations beginning for a prompt 7:30am start. After the power breakfast event, investors can move easily to the PDAC conference, which opens its doors at 10:00am.
Appearing at the InterContinetal Hotel in Toronto from 7:30am onwards will be Frontier Rare Earths, Montero Mining & Exploration, Greenland Minerals and Energy, and Great Western Minerals Group(see mini-biogs below).
Be sure to register for the event HERE
Frontier Rare Earths (TSE:FRO) shares have picked up recently as investors eagerly await the preliminary feasibility study for the company's Zandkopsdrift rare earth project in South Africa - expected out in the first quarter of this year.
In December, the company said that Korea Resources Corp (Kores) - the state-owned mining and natural resource investor - offically acquired the initial 10 per cent stake in Zandkopsdrift.
Along with the 10 per cent interest, Kores has also acquired an off-take right and obligation for 10 per cent of Zandkopsdrift rare earth production, for a total cash payment of C$23.8 million. The acquisition is part of a strategic alliance agreement initially signed between the two parties in December 2011, with an expanded deal announced in late October last year.
Under the expanded deal, Kores has the option to increase its interest in the project to up to 50 per cent, becoming an equal partner with Frontier, with an off-take right and obligation for up to 50 per cent production from Zandkopsdrift.
Frontier said the acquisition makes it the only junior company in the rare earths sector to have signed and completed a definitive agreement with a significant strategic partner.
The next opportunity on hand will be Montero Mining and Exploration (CVE:MON), which just raised a total of $1.4 million in new funds through a private placement financing that was oversubscribed by 40%.
Analysts are bullish on the stock with Euro Pacific Canada starting coverage on Montero last month with a "speculative buy" recommendation and a price target of 30 cents - far and above its current trading price of 11.5 cents.
"Montero has made significant advances in metallurgy. The company has produced samples of saleable rare earth products for marketing purposes, including cerium oxide, hydroxide and carbonate mixed rare earth products," noted metals and mining analyst for Euro Pacific, Luisa Moreno.
Indeed, the junior explorer's plan is to fast track a portion of the large Wigu Hill rare earth element deposit in Tanzania to the mining and production stage, but Montero believes that with a more comprehensive drilling program, it can expand mineral resources from the current 3.3 million tonnes to well above 40 million tonnes.
As a result of its fast track strategy and its decision not to focus on expanding resources, Montero has become one of the first juniors to produce samples of individual and mixed oxides. The company contracted Mintek in South Africa, a firm that specializes in mineral processing and extractive metallurgy, to conduct the preliminary metallurgical research and testwork on the 100-kilogram sample from Wigu Hill.
The project covers a 142 square kilometre area and grab samples have yielded results as high as 27.25% total rare earth oxides, with up to 16.68% from drilling.
Meanwhile, Greenland Minerals and Energy (ASX:GGG) recently conclusively demonstrated that a high grade flotation concentrate can be produced from Kvanefjeld ore at its project in Greenland, with results far exceeding both feasibility design and results achieved in bench‐scale laboratory test work.
The Kvanefjeld concentrator pilot plant campaign has achieved a concentrate grade of 15% rare earth oxides with a lower level of impurities present compared to the results achieved in bench‐scale laboratory test‐work. Importantly, successfully completing this continuous piloting campaign represents the final phase of process de‐risking for the concentrator circuit in the Kvanefjeld flow‐sheet.
Greenland says it has now established a very sound technical basis for the completion of Kvanefjeld’s Feasibility Study process design, as well as produced concentrate to provide to potential offtake partners. The study is currently underway and is scheduled for completion this year.
And finally, Great Western Minerals will take the podium, after last week releasing an updated NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate at its Steenkampskraal project that showed indicated resources rose by more than double from the report last May, while inferred resources more than tripled.
The new report, prepared by Snowden Mining Industry Consultants, showed a mineral resource of 32,000 metric tonnes of total rare earth oxides plus yttrium oxide (TREO) under the indicated category, and another 42,100 metric tonnes under the inferred category. Both categories used a 1% TREO cut-off grade.
A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) is due out in the first quarter of this year. The company also recently announced a 9,400-metre, 65-hole diamond drilling program at its past-producing Steenkampskraal property in South Africa, which is undergoing refurbishment for restart operations.
Great Western has announced a series of management additions and changes in recent weeks in preparation for a new stage in the life of the company, as it aims to become a fully integrated rare earth producer.
Currently, the company is a rare earth processor, whose specialty alloys are used in the magnet, battery, defence and aerospace industries. Its development program at Steenkampskraal is central to ensure a strong flow of feedstock for its downstream processing - the company intends to be one of the first to produce significant quantities of the more valuable heavy rare earth oxides, which are important materials for alloys.
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