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Tantalus Rare Earths is a rare earths exploration company focussed on its Tantalus Rare Earths project, located on the Ampasindava Peninsula in north-western Madagascar, where Tantalus holds the exploration license to a 300 km2 concession area. The company’s rare earths project benefits from a relatively high ratio of the more valuable heavy rare earths at 19% of total rare earth oxides. The results of a resource review carried out by SRK Consulting have tripled the inferred resources estimate to 435 million tonnes of rare earth bearing laterieritic clays and 348 thousand tonnes of rare earth oxides. The current resource is valued at approximately $10bn, after factoring in a 35% discount relating to the price differential common in Chinese markets.Results to date also indicate significant levels of tantalum, niobium, zirconium, gallium and smaller quantities of hafnium, tin, silver and base metals. Results have also shown low levels of uranium and thorium content, which is encouraging as it reduces the risk of future environmental problems often associated with rare earths projects.
Tantalus Rare Earths names new board member after Peter Küsters resigns
Düsseldorf-headquartered Tantalus Rare Earths AG (XETRA: TAE) has appointed business lawyer Andre Klupsch to the board as of May 15 to succeed Peter Küsters who recently informed the company of his intention to resign.
Küsters was instrumental in setting up the company and coordinated the stock exchange listing in January 2010.
Klupsch will assume the position of chief administrative officer and will, together with the chief executive Stephen Forman who was appointed in April and chief operating officer Wolfgang Hampel, conduct the company’s business.
Klupsch is a supervisory board member of various medium-sized companies and served as a legal advisor for a stock exchange listed, medium-sized company in the past.
New CEO Forman has spent the past 16 years working in investment banking, specifically in roles in international equities for JPMorgan and UBS both in Australia and the United States, where he served as executive director.
Tantalus identifies and develops rare earth exploration and mining projects outside China, mainly focusing on Africa.
Tantalus’ principal asset is the concession on the Ampasindava Peninsula in northern Madagascar , and in February the company reported "spectacular" grades of up to 31% of total rare earth oxides (REO), from the first preliminary assay results of their massive sampling campaign conducted between September and December 2009.
On the 300 square kilometre concession area a historic, non-JORC/NI43-101 compliant resource of approximately 15 million tons at 1.52% rare earth elements (REE) equivalent has been estimated, which given prices at the time, estimated the in-ground value at US$1.5 billion, Tantalus said.
The historic estimates originate from work conducted by a soviet geological mission during the late nineteen eighties and the early nineteen nineties. Previously, through tectonic-geological interpretation, three distinct radiometric anomalies were identified on the concession with zones covering 12km, 4km and 2.7km respectively.
The zones are composed of individual anomalies totalling over 30 km in strike length. During the period from September to early December 2009, these anomalies were systematically surveyed and sampled by Tantalus’ geological teams.
The most spectacular assay results were returned from two trenches, which were excavated on a weak radiometric anomaly. Channel samples measuring 5 metres in length were taken and 5 of 40 preliminary assay results have been received to date. Among the results TANT2-477053 was the highest grading with 31.09% REO, TANT2-477067 returned 16.40% REO and TANT2-477059 contained 9.16% REO. The other two samples graded approximately 3% REO.
The newly discovered mineralized zones are more substantial than the mineralization originally described by the Soviet teams, evidenced in part by the discovery of ore boulders approximately 2km north-west of the known mineralization, Tantalus said previously.
