Arunta West Project

HOLDING

100%

RESOURCES

REEs & Lithium

PROJECT SIZE

1600km²

LOCATION

600 kms West of Alice Springs

Arunta West Project

Overview

Norwest’s Arunta West Project (100%) – The Arunta West Rare Earth project is located in Western Australia, 600kms west of Alice Springs, at the WA – NT boarder. The tenements cover a ground holding of 1600kms² along the Arunta belt with Land Access Agreements in good standings for all project tenements. Until recently there has been limited modern exploration of this highly prospective region. In early 2022, an independent geochemical analysis of the large Arunta West multi-element soils database identified a strong anomaly of coincident REE elements Cerium (Ce), Lanthanum (La) and Yttrium (Y) along a 3-kilometre granite-sediment contact zone.

Drilling Campaign

In November 2022 Norwest drilled 20 RC holes into the 3-kilometre REE soil anomaly which is located along the contact between the Arunta belt granites (ABG) & Bitter Springs sediments (BSS). As all rare earth deposits in the region are hard rock hosted, Norwest targeted the granites along the contact with the 3 southernmost holes intersecting +1000 ppm TREO in granite saprolite clays. This was the first reported encounter of clay hosted REE in the region.

A review of copper exploration work undertaken in 2015 by First Quantum Minerals (FQM) revealed that REE enriched BSS clays were intersected in wide spaced aircore holes. The FQM drilling primarily focused within the Arunta West project area testing along the 100 kms of ABG and BSS contact which extends from the NE tenement boundary to the WA-NT boarder. No copper was intersected in 2015 and FQM relinquished the ground in 2016.

Norwest is targeting REE in shallow Bitter Springs sediments (BSS) saprolitic clays and clays associated with a covered paleo-drainage network. Currently, there is little known about the REE enrichment of these clays however their geologic setting suggests the REEs were released into solution from the weathering Arunta belt granites (ABG) with the soluble REEs migrating south to interact with the BSS clays. The migrating REEs attached onto the clay surfaces via ion exchange to form ionic adsorption clays.

Drilling Results

Norwest has completed RC and aircore drill programs at Arunta West targeting ionic adsorption clays (IAC) along the 3km REE soil anomaly identified by the Company in late 2021. The program also included Norwest redrilling historical FQM hole KWAC007 located 25kms to the southeast with hole AWAC018. Strong REE clay hosted mineralisation was encountered at 20 vertical metres in both drill holes. Drill sample lab assays indicate a direct association between elevated REE and wide drill intervals of BSG paleochannel & saprolitic clays.

The Company is progressing its metallurgical work on the rare earth samples and has planned a significant aircore drilling program to infill and extend the coverage across the 3km target zone. The drill program will also run section lines of holes across the 1.8km x 2km area around hole AWAC018.

Arunta West Project Location Map