Sunergy, Inc. (fka SNEY)

[falon]

Struggling Sierra Leone now a REE target

Monday, April 04, 2011

http://www.raremetalblog.com/2011/04/struggling-sierra-leone-now-a-ree-target.html

It remains one of the basket cases of Africa, but Sierra Leone is slowly rebuilding its economy after the devastating 11-year civil war. With a growing resurgence in mining activity, there is now the promise of potential REE activities in the West African nation.

It has been a stop-start proposition. Eighteen months ago Cream Minerals (TSX.V:CMA) announced it had identified heavy minerals and monazite, the latter with potential to contain REE, at its offshore concession in Sierra Leone. It believed the project had the potential to yield REE such as cerium, neodymium, lanthanum, praseodymium and yttrium among other elements. But the story seems to have withered quickly: according to the company’s website, no further announcements have been made about Sierra Leone and the country is not included on Cream’s list of current projects.

But there’s activity elsewhere. Sunergy Inc., an over-the-counter stock based in Scottsdale, Arizona (OTC.BB:SNEY), now has dredges and operating equipment on site at its 140 square kilometre concession on Sierra Leone’s Pampana River. While the initial emphasis was on the 500,000 ounces of gold and on diamonds, the REE part of the project seems have been gaining more prominence of late with the company stating the rare earths there may exceed the value of the gold.

Sunergy says the REE are in alluvial black sand and could easily be extracted by dredging. Also, inspection of extraction undertaken in the past by local artisanal miners and prospectors shows REE-rich black sand. Laboratory testing “revealed a strong presence of valuable rare earth metals,” the company says. Recent assays by ALS Chemex in Sparks, Nevada, identified lanthanum, scandium, cerium, dysprosium, lutetium, neodymium, praseodymium, as well as hafnium, thallium niobium, tantalum and zircon.

The other development comes from a company listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. Sierra Rutile (AIM:SRX), which mines rutile, zircon and ilmenite in the West African nation, says laboratory tests confirm the presence of REE at its project area. With a grade of 2.2 per cent, they contain high concentrations of lanthanum, neodymium and praseodymium in the high-tension tailings produced during the processing of rutile and ilmenite. The tailings are in the same source from which Sierra Rutile already recovers its zircon by-product by re-processing through a dry plant.

The company said it would now find how best to separate and recover the REE. It noted what it called “the relatively attractive cost position of processing rare earths which are already extracted and significantly refined as part of our normal rutile separation process“. The samples indicated a value of the REE at $US104.20 a kilogram, this value excluding the yttrium, lutetium and scandium, for which testing is continuing.