VICTORIA, 100%The 100%-owned Farrelly Mineral Sands Project is located approximately 80km northwest of Bendigo, near the town of Boort in Victoria. Falcon completed a review of its western tenements in 2023 and a recommendation was made to assess the potential for mineral sands and critical minerals mineralisation given the proximity of the ground to several large mineral sands projects. These include the WIM Resource Wedderburn Deposit , the Goschen deposits of VHM Ltd and ACDC Metals.
The Victorian Government published the Roadmap in December 2024 – focused on supporting the emerging industry and building community confidence. In recent months, critical mineral projects have seen significant progress, including:
Location of the Farrelly Mineral Sands Project
Victoria’s Murray Basin hosts several major mineral sands projects with associated Critical Minerals including Rare Earth Elements (REE) at advanced stages of development.
In October 2023 Falcon completed its first drill program specifically targeting mineral sands within EL006864 and EL007120. High-grade results were returned from PHAC1803 and PHAC1804, the best results from the program, approximately 5km east of the Wim Resource Wedderburn Deposit, with highlights as follows:
Over 5km north-northeast of these results, Falcon drilled a further three holes 200m apart which also returned anomalous results:
The area of mineral sands mineralisation defined was named the Farrelly Prospect and detailed grain counting and sachet scanning completed on samples from these holes confirmed that the Valuable Heavy Mineral (VHM) assemblage was similar to other known deposits in the Murray Basin
See ASX Announcement High-grade Mineral Sands Intersected at Pyramid Hill
Following a follow up aircore drilling program in March 2024, a large high-grade zone, called the Main Zone, was defined around the PHAC1803 and PHAC1804 intercepts over approximately 1,200m long in an east-west direction, and up to 600m in a north-south direction, and remains open to the northeast, northwest and southwest. The depth to mineralisation ranges from between 6m to 20m (>1 THM%) and averages approximately 12m.
Highlights from the Main Zone include:
High-grade mineralisation
Cross section A-A’, an east-west line showing the 1,200m long high-grade Main Zone
Preliminary Metallurgical Assessment
A 65-kilogram sample, with a Total Heavy Mineral (THM) grade of 12.2% THM, was composited from the existing aircore samples for a sighter test conducted by Allied Mineral Laboratories in Perth, Western Australia. The objective of the sighter test work was to identify any potential processing issues at the early exploration stage, in addition to providing data on the potential mineral products of the deposit including sizing, mineralogy and geochemistry.
The test work results are positive, with no notable processing issues identified. It also demonstrates the potential for high recoveries of minerals sands concentrates including zircon, ilmenite, rutile, leucoxene and monazite. Future work will focus on optimising the process flowsheet and recoveries, and refinement of product quality. Preliminary results on slimes (<38 µm size) confirmed typical flocculent addition and high settling rates can be achieved using conventional technology and methods.
The sand fraction component comprised 47.5% of the composite sample mass, with the oversize and slimes comprising 21.7% and 30.8% respectively of the bulk sample.
Farrelly heavy mineral concentrate prior to dry processing
QEMSCAN RESULTS
Following the positive metallurgical results , eight samples were selected for Quantitative Evaluation of Minerals by SCANning electron microscopy (QEMSCAN), including six concentrates produced from the sighter test. These were done to gain more detail on the quality and sizing of the concentrates, and the heavy minerals they contain. QEMSCAN provides bulk mineralogy, particle grain size and shape, mineral associations and mineral liberation data. It is the standard analytical method for providing quantitative evaluation of minerals.
The test work results are positive, with the valuable heavy minerals shown to be clean with negligible iron staining or clay content. It also further confirmed the Farrelly high-grade zone can produce a concentrate from conventional processing methods without any notable issues. Additional work is recommended including refinement of the ilmenite streams to remove minor accessory minerals such as chromite, and for additional quantitative analysis to better understand the Rare Earth Element (REE) content of the monazite stream, which was also confirmed to contain xenotime. Further drilling is required to provide sufficient sample to complete the recommended test program. The timing of this test work is uncertain and dependent on securing land access for this follow-up drilling, which would not only provide more material for metallurgical test work but is also needed to test the size extent of the high-grade Main Zone at Farrelly.
Key findings from the QEMSCAN test work include:
Falcon’s attempts to discuss land access matters with the landowners in good faith have been unsuccessful to date. Falcon has lodged a submission to the Office of the Mining Warden in Victoria, who has specialist expertise in land access matters such as this, to enable discussions to occur through a facilitated process, and to increase the likelihood of arriving at an appropriate outcome for the Company and the landowners.