A Grant, Eight Angled Holes and One Big Test for Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) at Subron

Aditi Sarkar

28 October 2026 04:10 PM AEDT

A Grant, Eight Angled Holes and One Big Test for Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) at Subron

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Highlights

A Western Australian Exploration Incentive Scheme grant will co-fund a $150,000 reverse circulation program at the Subron Rare Earths project.
Eight angled holes, each about 180 metres long, will test fresh basement rock for xenotime-bearing structures.
The 2021 to 2022 resource drilling used 547 vertical aircore holes that rarely, if ever, reached fresh rock.
The company is redomaining the existing 159 million tonne resource around higher-grade zones and evaluating collaboration with ANSTO Minerals.

Five hundred and forty-seven vertical holes, and almost none of them reached fresh rock. Heavy Rare Earths Limited (ASX:HRE) announced on 28 October 2026 that a Western Australian Government Exploration Incentive Scheme grant will co-fund a $150,000 drilling program at its Subron Rare Earths project. The new holes are designed to go deeper than the earlier work and test whether heavy rare earth oxide enrichment near surface is fed by structures in the rock below.

What the drilling will test

Chief executive Jason Barnett said the program is meant to establish whether enrichment in heavy rare earth oxides, or HREO, seen in shallow layers comes from xenotime-bearing structures in the fresh basement. Xenotime is a rare earth phosphate mineral that can host heavy rare earths.

The company plans eight angled reverse circulation holes, each about 180 metres long and drilled at roughly 60 degrees, so each cuts about 100 metres of fresh rock. Targets include contacts between magnetic and non-magnetic gneiss and their strike extensions, along with faulted, sheared or folded areas. A gneiss area dominated by light rare earth oxides, where no heavy enrichment has been seen, will serve as a control.

Why earlier drilling may have missed it

The 2021 to 2022 resource drilling relied on 547 vertical aircore holes. In the company's view, steeply dipping structures were therefore not adequately tested, and the angled holes are meant to close that gap. The announcement includes tables of intercepts above 1,000 parts per million total rare earth oxide, collar data, lanthanide assays and a JORC Code Table 1.

Work running alongside

The drilling sits within wider work aimed at expanding and better defining the Subron HREO resource during calendar 2027. That includes database analysis to redomain the existing 159 million tonne resource around higher-grade, high-HREO zones, and scanning electron microscope and TIMA mineralogy on intervals where HREO ratios exceed 38 per cent.

The company also plans to re-assay historical sample pulps for gallium and hafnium, take stock of available material for metallurgical testwork and evaluate inviting ANSTO Minerals to collaborate.

Status and limits

The grant supports drilling only. The announcement reports no new drilling results and does not change the existing resource estimate. No start date was given, and the share of cost covered by the grant was not specified beyond the $150,000 program figure. Whether the basement holes find xenotime-bearing structures will not be known until they are drilled and assayed. The Competent Person is Mr Joseph Ogierman, a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists.

What to watch

Key milestones are the start and finish of the eight-hole program, assays from the fresh-rock intercepts, and the outcome of the mineralogy and database work linked to resource expansion in 2027. Any collaboration with ANSTO Minerals remains at the evaluation stage.

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