Why Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) won a Western Australian EIS grant to drill deeper at its Subron rare earths project

Sonal Goyal

28 October 2026 04:40 PM AEDT

Why Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) won a Western Australian EIS grant to drill deeper at its Subron rare earths project

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Key Highlights

The company was awarded a Western Australian Exploration Incentive Scheme grant to co-fund a $150,000 drilling program at Subron.
Eight angled reverse circulation holes of about 180 metres are planned to test fresh basement rock for xenotime-bearing structures.
The grant supports drilling only and does not change the existing 159 million tonne resource estimate or report new drilling results.

Heavy Rare Earths Limited (ASX:HRE) announced on 28 October 2026 that it has been awarded a grant under the Western Australian Government's Exploration Incentive Scheme to co-fund a $150,000 drilling programme at its Subron Rare Earths project. The company said the holes are designed to go deeper than earlier work and test whether heavy rare earth oxide enrichment near surface is fed by structures in fresh rock below.

What the drilling will test

According to the company, the programme is intended to establish whether the enrichment in heavy rare earth oxides, or HREO, seen in shallow layers is sourced from xenotime-bearing structures in the fresh basement. Chief executive Jason Barnett described the programme in those terms. 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 that each intersects about 100 metres of fresh rock. Targets include contacts between magnetic and non-magnetic gneiss and their strike extensions, along with areas that are faulted, sheared or folded. 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

Heavy Rare Earths said the 2021 to 2022 resource drilling used 547 vertical aircore holes, which rarely if ever reached fresh rock. In its view, steeply dipping structures were therefore not adequately tested. The new angled holes are meant to address that gap. The announcement also includes tables of intercepts above 1,000 parts per million total rare earth oxide, collar data and lanthanide assays, together with a JORC Code Table 1 covering sampling and drilling methods.

Related technical work

The drilling sits within a wider body of work that the company said is aimed at expanding and better defining the Subron HREO resource during calendar 2027. That work 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 a drilling programme only; the announcement does not report new drilling results, and it does not change the existing resource estimate. Whether the basement holes find xenotime-bearing structures is unknown until the holes are drilled and assayed. The company did not give a start date for drilling in the material summarised here, and the exact share of the cost covered by the grant was not specified beyond the $150,000 programme figure.

The Competent Person for the announcement is Mr Joseph Ogierman, a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists. The release carries the usual forward-looking statements disclaimer, which cautions that planned work and its outcomes are subject to risks and uncertainties.

What to watch

The key milestones will be the start and completion of the eight-hole programme, assay results from the fresh-rock intercepts, and the outcome of the mineralogy and database work that the company has linked to resource expansion in 2027. Any decision on collaboration with ANSTO Minerals is still at the evaluation stage, according to the company.

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