The Ionic Rare Earths Ltd (ASX: IXR) share price is on fire this week.
Shares in the rare earths explorer are up nearly 13% since the start of the week, currently swapping hands at 5.2 cents. In afternoon trade, shares are up 6% on yesterday's closing price. In early trading, they were as high as 5.6 cents.
Let's take a look at what might be helping this company's shares this week.
Exploring for rare earths
The Ionic Rare Earths share price is soaring on the back of a drilling update released to the market on 6 January. Ionic is exploring rare earths at the Makuutu rare earths project in Uganda.
Also impacting the share price could be increasing global demand for clean energy products. Rare earths are an integral component of the magnets found in wind turbines and electric vehicles.
The Ionic share price has jumped more than 10% between market close on 5 January and the current price.
The company said drilling results from the phase four drill program affirmed Makuutu is an ionic adsorption clay-hosted rare earth element project.
All of the 75 drill holes showed "clay and saprolite mineralisation intersections above the cut-off grade of 200 ppm Total Rare Earth Oxide less CeO2".
Ionic Rare Earths said the project is one of only a few confirmed ionic adsorption clay deposits in the world outside of China.
Management commentary
Commenting on the results driving the Ionic Rare Earths share price, managing director Tim Harrison said:
Thickness of mineralised clay and minimal cover is crucial to minimising the opex [operating expenses] cost, and Makuutu continues to deliver with results from this batch reporting approximately 25% of the intercepts within the Makuutu Central Zone exceeding 20m thick, and over 85% greater than 10 metres thick.
The 100% strike rate in these results bodes well for what we think will be a very positive year ahead for Makuutu as we advance towards a considerable increase in resource confidence over the next few months and drive Makuutu towards a completion of the feasibility study and a mining licence application by October 2022.
Ionic Rare Earths share price snapshot
The Ionic Rare Earths share price has soared 136% in the past 12 months.
In comparison, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has returned more than 11% to investors over the same time frame.
The company commands a market capitalisation of roughly $181 million based on the current share price.
