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Andrew Todd
Critica Limited has taken another step towards de-risking its behemoth Jupiter rare earths project in Western Australia by producing a second high-grade mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC), which impressively clocked in at 58 per cent total rare earth oxide (TREO).
The results replicate the first MREC result, demonstrating a repeatable product quality, with a welcome added payload of increased valuable magnet and heavy rare earths.
Australian Minmet Metallurgical Laboratories (AMML) produced the latest MREC, which notably almost mirrored the product from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), using the same repeatable process.
However, the latest product showed a significant uptick in the components that really drive the economics of a rare earths project. The content of valuable magnet rare earth oxides (MREO) jumped to 15 per cent from 14.1 per cent, while the heavy rare earth oxide (HREO) content surged to 3.66 per cent from 2.41 per cent.
‘Importantly, the latest product also delivered increased Magnet Rare Earth and Heavy Rare Earth content.’
Critica chief executive office Jacob Deysel
Specifically, the new MREC contains higher concentrations of the key heavy magnet rare earths dysprosium and terbium, as well as neodymium oxide – useful additions amid a global market that’s notoriously tight on supply and subject to significant price volatility in both Chinese and Western markets.
Critica chief executive officer Jacob Deysel said: “Producing a second MREC at approximately 58% TREO is an important result, demonstrating repeatability in our ability to produce a high-grade rare earth carbonate from Jupiter. Importantly, the latest product also delivered increased Magnet Rare Earth and Heavy Rare Earth content, further strengthening the product quality.”
As is becoming increasingly apparent in the rare earths gambit, rare earths aren’t really that rare. Instead, processing is key to a project’s eventual success and Critica’s successful replication of a high-grade MREC using a conventional, industry-standard acid bake flowsheet looks to be a serious technical milestone.
The company now has a firm handle on the metallurgy required to turn its massive 1.8 billion tonne resource into a saleable product, with the result becoming the latest in a string of metallurgical wins at Jupiter. Broader testwork programs have already demonstrated improved beneficiation recovery of a whopping 81 per cent magnet rare earths from its ore and a significant 30 per cent processing reduction in the costly sulphuric acid consumption.
Jupiter is touted as Australia’s largest clay-hosted rare earth resource, offering major leverage to magnet rare earths, gallium and yttrium just as electrification, robotics and artificial intelligence infrastructure ramp up demand for these critical inputs. Paired with its Mt Lindsay tin-tungsten project in Tasmania, Critica appears to have its hands full building out a multi-commodity critical minerals platform spanning five commodities.
The company says it’s now running scoping studies for both the Jupiter and Mt Lindsay projects, with completion targeted by the end of this month. SRK Consulting has been engaged to deliver an updated resource estimate for Jupiter, while engineering heavyweight SEDGMAN is managing the project’s scoping study. Meanwhile, DRA Global has scored a guernsey for the Mt Lindsay study.
With two high-grade MREC products now under its belt and a growing body of evidence supporting its processing flowsheet, Critica enters the next phase of development with increasing confidence. Consistency is what separates promising metallurgy from a credible development pathway, and Critica has now demonstrated exactly that.
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