Meteoric Resources NL (ASX: MEI) shares are having yet another strong session on Wednesday.
In morning trade, the rare earths explorer's shares jumped 19% to a new 52-week high of 28 cents.
When the company's shares hit that level, they were up a remarkable 430% in 2023.
Why are Meteoric Resources shares surging again?
Investors have been fighting to get hold of the company's shares today after it released "exceptional results" from its metallurgical testwork at the 100%-owned Caldeira Rare Earth Ionic Clay Project in Brazil.
According to the release, the testwork from diamond drill cores collected during a metallurgical sampling program is believed to include the highest rare earth leach extractions ever reported for a standard ammonium sulphate (AMSUL) wash at pH 4.0 for any listed company on the ASX or globally.
Furthermore, mineralisation across all tenements tested displays strong ionic behaviour over thick intervals using a standard AMSUL wash test.
'Truly World Class!'
It's not often you see exclamation marks in an ASX announcement, but Meteoric Resources' CEO, Nick Holthouse, didn't shy away from their use when describing the results. He said:
Truly World Class! The exceptional results documented today in the all-important recovery to leach phase of the test work has exceeded the expectations of Meteoric and ANSTO. Not only do the results confirm the vast majority of the samples tested are in fact Ionic and amenable to low Capex and Opex AMSUL leaching atpH 4.0, but they also demonstrate that exceptional leach extractions exist below the current boundaries of the Inferred Resource.
The CEO also notes that this is only the first phase of its program. He adds:
Importantly, this is the first phase of our metallurgical program and these exceptional results will now be optimised to quantify the reagent concentrations and leach kinetics and potentially further increase the recoveries. Caldeira Project's exceptional rare earth grades and significant mineralised thicknesses coupled with these best in class recoveries bode extremely well for further optimisation of MEI's proposed high-grade feed scenario that will be laser focused to deliver early project value. I look forward very much to the additional results available in the next quarter and beyond this phase of work to the precipitation of Mixed Rare Earth Carbonate (MREC) phase of the program due early in 2024.
