PNN completes first holes at rare earths project - assays due early August

Our rare earths Investment Power Minerals (ASX: PNN | OTCQB: PEIMF) just completed the first two holes at its rare earths project in Brazil.

A third hole is now underway and has already passed 200m depth.

And first assay results are expected from the project inside the next two to three weeks.

We also noticed, PNN confirmed a second drill rig is also due on site "shortly" to speed things up.

Here is a look at the drilling and drone on site from today’s announcement:

(source)

PNN’s target is a maiden JORC resource for its project “ later this year”.

We think the first batch of assay results here could be interesting because it will be the first time PNN can report its own drill results on a project with some of the highest grade historic hits we have ever seen.

There are historic intercepts with 60m+ hits grading above 8% TREO from surface PLUS high magnet rare earth oxides (MREO).

We think that even just confirming those old hits should bring a fair bit of market interest into PNN…

(source)

Especially because of those MREO grades - these are the magnet rare earths that go into EV, robot and defence system magnets:

We covered the drilling and PNN's magnet rare earths work in our most recent note here.

New research report from Evolution Capital on PNN

We also came across this updated research report from the guys and girls at Evolution Capital last week which puts a price target of 29c on PNN.

(over 100% higher than where PNN sits today)

What we want to see next from PNN

🔄Drilling at Brazilian rare earth project (Morro do Ferro)

This week PNN got drilling underway at the project and assay results from this are expected in ~3-4 weeks from dispatch, so we should start to see these coming through in July:

(source)

We are hoping to see that the historical grades are confirmed and to see if the mineralisation extends from the historic drilling.

• ✅ Drilling underway
• 🔄 Early assays received (have been dispatched, expected in ~2-3 weeks, early August) (source)
• 🔲 All Assays Received
• 🔲 Maiden JORC Resource

There is also larger drill core size samples being taken for met testing:

• 🔲 Met samples taken and sent to lab
• 🔲 Met samples results received

🔄Mineralogy program at Morro do Ferro

Recently PNN got a mineralogy program underway at MDF, where it will be looking at the ways for it to target the 4 valuable magnetic rare earths and strip out the waste early. (source)

The goal of this is to show that the project will be able to produce a high grade and quality MREO product and investigate ways to improve the economics and efficiencies.

These works will also help PNN begin to factor in things like plant design and future mining strategies and also influence JORC resource results.