Rare Element drills 193 ft of 4.12% ROE at Bear Lodge

2009-02-04 17:42 ET - News Release

Mr. Donald Ranta reports

RARE ELEMENT RESOURCES -- DRILL RESULTS AND METALLURGICAL TESTING

Rare Element Resources Ltd. is providing rare-earth-element (REE) assay results from four holes of the 2008 core drilling program completed on the company's 100-per-cent-owned Bear Lodge property located in northeastern Wyoming, in the United States.

Three of the holes were drilled into the Bull Hill Southwest target, where a historical resource had been previously estimated. The fourth hole was drilled to test an area with both REE and gold potential.

Highlights of the drill program include relatively thick intercepts in three holes, and higher grades in drill holes RES 08-1 and 08-3.

These results will assist the company in completing its first National Instrument 43-101 independent resource report, which it expects to have done in the first half of 2009. Metallurgical testing during 2008 made significant strides forward, but additional work needs to be done. Rare-earth ores are difficult to treat in the best of situations, and the Bear Lodge mineralization is no exception to this rule.

Drilling results

The rare-earth mineralization encountered in three of the four drill holes is primarily contained within the near-surface oxidized equivalents (FMR) of carbonatite dikes that intrude a body of heterolithic intrusive breccia along the southwest flank of Bull Hill, within the Bear Lodge alkaline-igneous complex. REE assay values are reported by convention as the combined oxide equivalents (REO) of the 15 elements in the series.

The oxide equivalents are approximately 15.6 per cent higher than the combined metal assay values. The Bear Lodge project contains predominantly the light REE (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium and gadolinium), and in particular, the first four of these.

Assaying of the rare earth elements was conducted by Activation Laboratories (ActLabs) in its Ancaster, Ont., assay facility. The samples were prepared and subjected to lithium metaborate fusion, followed by ICP analysis and a mass spectroscopy finish. ActLabs is recognized as an internationally respected analytical laboratory with extensive experience in analyzing rare earth elements.

"We are pleased with the results of our rare-earth drilling and continue to advance the project with a continuation of the metallurgical testing program to determine a feasible method of concentrating the rare-earth-bearing minerals," states president, Don Ranta.

A summary of the entire Rare Element exploration program for rare earth elements from 2004 through 2007 was released on April 23, 2008, in Stockwatch.

Metallurgical testing

The most recent phase of metallurgical testing continued through 2008 to determine the technical feasibility of recovering the rare-earth values from the Bear Lodge mineralization. Initial efforts were directed toward preconcentration to upgrade REE values prior to the use of higher-cost hydrometallurgical procedures. These preconcentration techniques included gravity concentration (such as jigs, tables and spirals), heavy media separation (HMS) and flotation.

The results of preliminary preconcentration (upgrading) tests by physical separation processes on the unoxidized REE-mineralized material indicate that a reasonable sink-float separation is technically feasible under the best test condition of minus-three-eighths-of-an-inch crush size and a liquid density of 2.85 grams per cubic centimetre. Results of this test indicate an overall recovery of about 80 per cent in the preconcentrate within about 50-weight per cent of the original material. This preconcentrate was then further treated by the flotation process to recover the sulphide fraction as a potential source of H2SO4 required in the hydrometallurgical treatment of the preconcentrate to recover the REE values. Using the leaching concept, it is technically feasible to obtain a recovery of about 84 per cent from the preconcentrate or an overall recovery of about 67 per cent from the original mineralized material. Testing of the transitional (unoxidized plus oxidized) material gave slightly lower overall recoveries.

Rare-earth ores are difficult to treat in the best of situations, and the Bear Lodge mineralization is no exception to this rule. Through a careful program of research and development at the Mountain States R&D International laboratory, additional preconcentration testing will be conducted to find a technique to further upgrade the REE values, and leach testing the preconcentrate with heat and additional leach time is expected to raise the REE extraction above 90 per cent.

The company will select samples from the 2008 core drilling program for further metallurgical study and testing. Beneficiation tests will be conducted on oxidized and unoxidized rare-earth-mineralized carbonatite samples to determine the feasibility of producing commercial rare-earth products.

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