With a fresh set of clues in hand, Dateline is gearing up for the next big push. The company is rolling out more surface sampling and plotting its first drill program beyond the pit walls. The program will test the projected path of the newly mapped felsite bodies to find out whether Colosseum’s breccia pipes might be a surface expression of a much bigger, vertically stacked gold iceberg.
Adding to the rapidly evolving gold story at Colosseum, Dateline is also in the hunt for a big, rare earth elements (REE) prize. The project is less than 10km from the world-class Mountain Pass rare earth mine, which is America’s only operating rare earths mine.
Mountain Pass kicked off production in 1952 with a jaw-dropping 7 per cent total rare earths grade. For decades, it dominated global supply. From the 1960s through to the 1990s, it was the go-to REE source, until China ramped up its rare earths game.
Dateline’s rare earths story was really lit on fire by a headline-making endorsement from US President Donald Trump, who threw his weight behind the company’s Colosseum project as a future rare earths contender in a weekly update on his Truth Social platform.
The presidential plug came hot on the heels of a major regulatory breakthrough after the US Interior Department formally upheld Dateline’s right to mine its historic leases in California. It was a turning point that gave Dateline the green light to chase its rare earth ambitions in a big way.
With the gold potential acting as a financial springboard, the company now has greater freedom to test the site’s REE credentials – an attractive proposition in the current geopolitical climate.
Backed by a 27.1 million tonne resource grading 1.26 grams per tonne gold and an updated project valuation of US$550 million (A$823M), Colosseum is shaping up as far more than just a brownfields revival story. With the company’s share price up 42 per cent today alone, Dateline’s latest news looks like it could be the wake-up call punters have been waiting for.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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