- 01Caladao MRE +24% to 708.6 Mt @1,443 ppm TREO
- 02Woolrich MRE: 264.6 Mt @1,101 ppm TREO; Ga 34.7 ppm
- 03Woolrich Indicated 42%; 110.1 Mt @1,073 TREO; Ga 35.1 ppm
Axel REE (ASX: AXL) has increased the Caladão project mineral resource estimate in Minas Gerais, Brazil by 24% to 708.6 million tonnes at 1,443 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) after more than doubling the Woolrich deposit.
The upgraded Woolrich MRE now stands at 264.6Mt at 1,101ppm TREO and 34.7ppm gallium, a 107% tonnage increase from the previous 128Mt entirely Inferred resource.
About 42% of Woolrich is now Indicated, with a maiden 110.1Mt at 1,073ppm TREO and 35.1ppm gallium, while the remaining 154.5Mt is classified as Inferred.
The Caladão gallium MRE has risen 31% to 575.7Mt at 37.05ppm, reflecting the upgraded Woolrich estimate alongside Area A, Marambaia, and Tiger Creek.
Woolrich remains Axel’s priority area for evaluating a controlled in situ recovery (ISR) field validation program after leach optimisation and planned hydrogeological work are completed.
Woolrich Driving Resource Growth
Independent consultant GE21 based the updated MRE on drilling completed through July 2026 and reported it at a 500ppm TREO cut-off, with the deposit remaining open laterally along strike and at depth.
The broader Caladão MRE now comprises 598.5Mt Inferred at 1,512ppm TREO and 110.1Mt Indicated at 1,073ppm TREO across four deposits, with the resource footprint covering about half of the 420-square-kilometre project area.
“Woolrich is the area we are prioritising for our ISR development program, and the increased geological confidence provides a stronger foundation for integrating our metallurgical, hydrogeological, and field data,” managing director Patience Mpofu said.
“The next phase is to complete the work required to support a controlled field validation program and assess how the system behaves under field conditions.”
“The planned Woolrich field validation program is an important next milestone for Caladão as we build the technical dataset required to evaluate the potential low-impact ISR development pathway.”
Field Validation Advancing
The updated MRE is based on total geochemical assays and is independent of Axel’s ongoing soluble rare earth metallurgical program, with ISR being evaluated separately rather than used as the basis for the resource.
Axel plans to continue magnesium sulphate leach optimisation and hydrogeological characterisation before designing the controlled field validation program.
The field work is intended to test solution migration, containment, transmissivity, recovery, and wash-out behaviour under field conditions before any move to larger-scale pilot evaluation.
The MRE is constrained within an optimised open-pit shell to demonstrate reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction, but Axel is yet to complete a technical study and the mining and processing cost assumptions are theoretical inputs rather than forecasts.
Gallium is reported within the same TREO-constrained resource without a separate gallium cut-off, while Axel is investigating recovery options and no metallurgical test work has yet been completed on gallium recovery at Caladão Area B.
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