US Interior publicly backs rare earth mine next to Mountain Pass

[Redator]

Dateline Resources (ASX: DTR) has gained further political support in its bid to develop what could be America’s second rare earth mine following the public backing of US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

Speaking to Fox News this past Sunday, Burgum emphasized the importance of the Colosseum mine project in California, calling its revival a “pivotal step” towards bolstering America’s supply of critical minerals.

This endorsement, says project owner Dateline, “underscores the strategic importance of Colosseum in reducing US reliance on overseas sources for rare earth elements.” It follows an earlier approval by the Interior Department of the company’s existing mining plan.

Shortly after Burgum’s public backing, Dateline’s management team led by director Stephen Baghdadi met with Burgum at the Department of the Interior headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss the next steps for the project.

The discussion highlighted the mine’s potential to contribute to the US supply chain for rare earth elements, which are essential for advanced technologies and national security, “sooner than any other known deposit” in the country, Dateline said in a press release.

The Australian miner added that Burgum, joined by senior appointees from the DOI and President Donald Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, “reaffirmed his commitment to bolstering US rare earth production, expressing specific enthusiasm for the Colosseum mine.”

Sitting along California’s Walker Lane Trend, the Colosseum project is conveniently situated 10 km north of the Mountain Pass mine held by MP Materials (NYSE: MP), the only producer of rare earths in the US.

Dateline’s project already has a rich history of mining dating to the California Gold Rush era. Industrial-scale gold mining took place on the property in the late 1980s under the ownership of Canada’s LAC Minerals, producing a total of 344,000 oz. from two open pits until its closure in 1993. Barrick Gold then held the project for two decades but conducted minimal activity.

Similarity to Mountain Pass

Dateline took over the Colosseum project in 2021 and has since reviewed work undertaken by the USGS to identify radio metric signatures for the Colosseum – Mountain Pass corridor.

Upon completion of its review, Dateline’s team concluded that the project shares the same geological setting as Mountain Pass, which started production in 1952 and was a primary global source of rare earth elements (REE) from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Technical assessments suggest the potential for REE-bearing ore within Colosseum’s claim boundary, Dateline said. However, due to its location within the Mojave National Preserve, the project has been stalled in recent years.

The Colosseum project currently has no estimated resources for REE, only a JORC-2012-compliant gold resource of 1.1 million oz., with about two-thirds in the measured and indicated categories. A scoping study in August 2024 outlined an eight-plus-year mine life averaging 75,000 oz. of gold production per annum.

Dateline closed Tuesday’s trading session in Australia down 20% at A$0.10 a share, for a market capitalization of A$281.4 million.