Tom Drivas on Appia’s Rare Earths Drill Blitz in Brazil’s Ionic Clay Belt

Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp. (CSE: API | OTCQB: APAAF) has begun to devour Brazil’s ionic clays with a drilling blitz that underscores its ambition to become a rare earths powerhouse. “We started drilling with one drill on August 1st, and two weeks later we brought in the second drill,” chief executive Tom Drivas told InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes. “We’ve completed close to 45 drill holes already.” The two new auger rigs are spearheading a 241-hole campaign across the Gaia target at the company’s PCH project in Goiás State, chosen because its magnetic signature mirrors that of neighboring Taygeta and Merope, where earlier holes cut high-grade ionic-adsorption clays rich in the heavy rare earths needed for permanent magnets.Appia owns the right to acquire up to 70% of the 42,932-hectare PCH project and already sees two styles of mineralization there—shallow ionic clays amenable to low-cost leaching and deeper monazite-bearing carbonatitic breccias. “The PCH project is the easiest to move into development,” Mr. Drivas said, noting that a new NI 43-101 resource estimate is in preparation alongside environmental baseline work intended to accelerate permitting.Financing for this pace has not come solely from equity markets. Provincial incentives in Canada have helped offset exploration costs. “Saskatchewan is one of the best places to explore and work,” Mr. Drivas said, pointing to a government grant and the return of a bond linked to an airborne survey. Those funds follow last year’s drilling at Alces Lake, where monazite mineralization reaches surface with grades up to 85% monazite containing roughly 50% rare earths. That deposit sits within trucking distance of the Saskatchewan Research Council’s under-construction monazite processing complex in Saskatoon—a “strong synergy,” as Mr. Drivas described it, because Appia will not have to build its own refinery.Investors have started to notice. “The market is finally realizing that these are exciting projects,” Mr. Drivas said when asked about the stock’s recent rally. Beyond Brazil and Alces Lake, Appia controls the historic Elliot Lake camp—Canada’s only district ever to produce rare earth by-products commercially, alongside 300 million pounds of uranium—and four Athabasca Basin uranium properties. “Appia has multiple rare earth projects and we’re advancing them,” he said. “Rare earths have been in the news, so there’s new market awareness.”Priority, however, remains firmly on Brazil, where auger cuttings arrive daily. “Our plan is to bring out a new resource report on at least a couple of the ionic clay zones soon,” Mr. Drivas said, adding that discussions with potential strategic partners are under way. Shareholders can also expect news from Saskatchewan as ground-gravity surveys refine deeper drill targets at Alces Lake, and from corporate initiatives to monetize non-core assets. “We’ll have a lot of news in the next few weeks and months,” Mr. Drivas promised, a timetable as brisk as the drills turning in the Goiás heat.