Morella uncovers a major rubidium inventory at Mt Edon

Mt Edon establishes a sizeable rubidium inventory

Morella Corporation Limited (ASX:1MC) has put a formal number around its Mt Edon rubidium project, reporting a maiden JORC 2012 Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate of 5.44 million tonnes at 0.16% Rb2O. The estimate contains approximately 8,300 tonnes of rubidium oxide across the Sophie and Miles & June prospects, positioning Mt Edon among the larger reported Australian rubidium inventories at the company’s selected 0.10% cut-off.

The resource is shallow and near surface, with the estimate constrained within optimised open-pit shells. It is based on 51 reverse-circulation holes totalling 3,588 metres, with drilling covering roughly 500 metres of strike at Sophie and 250 metres at Miles & June. Mineralisation remains open beyond the current footprint, while the wider project contains mapped pegmatites that have not yet been systematically drilled.

Extraction results support the next technical test

Metallurgy provides the filing’s most encouraging supporting data. Laboratory work at Edith Cowan University’s Mineral Recovery Research Centre achieved rubidium extraction of up to 93.6% into solution, following a 89.3% result in earlier phase work. That is a laboratory extraction result, not an overall project recovery or evidence of commercial viability.

For its Reasonable Prospects for Eventual Economic Extraction assessment, Morella assumed an overall rubidium process recovery of 68% through beneficiation, leaching and purification. The resource’s open-pit assessment also uses an assumed rubidium carbonate price of US$400 per kilogram. Morella explicitly says that figure is being used only for the RPEEE assessment and is not a forecast realised price.

Rubidium’s commercial value will ultimately depend on more than the headline tonnage. The company still needs to establish a processing route, purify the product, confirm a saleable specification and test the economics against operating costs and price conditions. The current assessment assigns no economic contribution to the associated 3,600 tonnes of Li2O or tantalum, leaving any value from those elements to future metallurgical and economic work.

Inferred classification leaves resource confidence as the near-term task

All 5.44Mt is classified as Inferred, meaning the estimate is considered suitable as a global resource but not for local selective mining decisions. Snowden Optiro identified uncertainty around drill spacing, pegmatite geometry, historical drilling, density coverage and local grade continuity. The filing also notes that no external umpire laboratory checks or separate independent audit of the final estimate have been completed.

Morella’s next programme is therefore aimed at turning geological scale into greater confidence. It plans infill and step-out drilling at Sophie and Miles & June, targeted diamond drilling for structural, density and metallurgical information, broader density measurements and continued testing of extraction, purification and flowsheet options. The unresolved question is whether the resource’s shallow geometry and promising laboratory response can survive the harder tests of variability, scale-up and economics.