Rare earths are back. Critica has plenty, but what about processing?

The West Australian

Sep 25

Rare earths are a thing again… that seems clear.United States President Donald Trump bent Ukraine over a barrel to get some of theirs and he wants to buy Greenland to grab some of its. Apple just ...

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Critica has plenty, but what about processing?","media":"The West Australian","content":"<div>\n<p>Rare earths are a thing again… that seems clear.United States President Donald Trump bent Ukraine over a barrel to get some of theirs and he wants to buy Greenland to grab some of its. Apple just ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://thewest.com.au/business/public-companies/rare-earths-are-back-critica-has-plenty-but-what-about-processing-c-20137527\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"thewest_stock","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Rare earths are back. 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Critica has plenty, but what about processing?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2025-09-25 02:04 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://thewest.com.au/business/public-companies/rare-earths-are-back-critica-has-plenty-but-what-about-processing-c-20137527><strong>The West Australian</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Rare earths are a thing again… that seems clear.United States President Donald Trump bent Ukraine over a barrel to get some of theirs and he wants to buy Greenland to grab some of its. Apple just ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://thewest.com.au/business/public-companies/rare-earths-are-back-critica-has-plenty-but-what-about-processing-c-20137527\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BK4139","symbol_name":"生物科技","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://thewest.com.au/business/public-companies/rare-earths-are-back-critica-has-plenty-but-what-about-processing-c-20137527","article_id":"2570805515","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-20137527/90e51e0c7e8c629715f812457919836c7f32b88a.jpg"],"rights":{"source":"thewest_stock","url":"https://thewest.com.au/business/public-companies/rare-earths-are-back-critica-has-plenty-but-what-about-processing-c-20137527","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2570805515","pubTimestamp":1758737088,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"thewest_stock","name":"The West Australian"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Rare earths are back, and Critica has an army of PhDs and technocrats cracking the processing code for non-ionic rare earths at its Jupiter deposit as it looks to turn massive resources into massive revenues. ","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"thewest.com.au","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4139":"生物科技","MREO":"Mereo Biopharma Group Plc","BK4505":"高瓴资本持仓"},"translate_title":"稀土又回来了。Critica有很多，但是处理呢？","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"MREO":1},"content_text":"Rare earths are a thing again… that seems clear.United States President Donald Trump bent Ukraine over a barrel to get some of theirs and he wants to buy Greenland to grab some of its. Apple just committed US$500 million to get hold of the rare earths and downstream magnet products coming out of MP Materials’ Mountain Pass rare earths mine in California and the US Department of Defense also threw a lazy US$400 million at the project recently.Mega-miner Iluka just lent Lindian Resources US$20 million to secure 15 years’ worth of supply out of Lindian’s exquisite Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi and an Andrew ’Twiggy’ Forrest company just picked up 60 per cent of Hastings Technology Metals’ big Yangibana rare earths project in Western Australia.The US Government has also ploughed US$18 million into TSX-listed Ucore Rare Metals’ Louisiana rare earths processing facility, which recently struck a 10-year supply agreement with NASDAQCM-listed Critical Metals. That deal will see Critical provide rare earths product out of its Greenland mine to Ucore. Back in June, the US Government’s Export-Import Bank (EXIM) sent Critical Metals a “letter of interest” around providing a US$120 million loan for that project – underlining Trump’s fever pitch when it comes to getting his foot on Greenland’s rare earths riches by hook or by crook.However, for all its international posturing, the Trump administration would do well to take a look at little old WA if it is serious about securing long-term supplies of rare earths outside of China.One WA company that is laying its ears back in the rush to get a piece of the action is ASX-listed Critica Ltd. If Trump just opened the hood at Critica, his business brain would start working overtime.Critica’s clay-based Jupiter resource, within its broader Brothers project in WA, has an almost biblical scale 1.78-billion-tonne rare earths resource going a very respectable 1650 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO). Just the high-grade core within that global resource of 520m tonnes grading 2169ppm is world-class and would rival most others.Perhaps more important is the sheer scale of the “magnet” resource within that global resource. The four most lucrative of the 17 or so rare earths are those used in electric motor industrial magnets. They are neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium – and Critica’s Jupiter deposit has plenty. In fact, 23 per cent of the global resource is magnet-based. Despite its huge grade and big deposit, not even MP Material’s Mountain Pass mine deposit achieves that number.At 640 million tonnes going 490ppm magnetic rare earth oxides (MREO), Critica says Jupiter is the largest magnet-based rare earths play in Australia. It would very likely give some of the larger global projects a run for their money, too.So why hasn’t the $60 million Critica shot the lights out yet with big offtake agreements and US chequebooks looking to fund a mine?Well, that may well happen – and soon.The hurdle for Critica right now is the nature of its rare earths. They are known as “non-ionic” as opposed to “ionic”. There is still work to be done to prove up the processing route for non-ionic, as there are not too many examples of them being mined around the world. And on that front, Critica is a bit like the proverbial bulldog eating porridge, with a massive amount of work going on across multiple streams to arrive at a successful processing flowsheet to leach its non-ionic rare earths product.Earlier this year, Critica employed engineer Jacob Deysel to run the company. He has three internal PhDs on salary reporting to him and has also outsourced processing pathway design work to some of the best and brightest in the industry, ahead of building a pilot plant, which is currently underway.Critica recently launched three parallel technical programs aimed at cracking the processing code for non-ionic, clay-based rare earths from Jupiter, which is near WA’s old mining town of Mt Magnet.The centrepiece to unlocking the processing puzzle is the renowned East Coast-based Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). Ansto is running independent hydrometallurgical testwork to produce a mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) from a concentrate that has already been upgraded more than 800 per cent from a standard beneficiation process using magnetic separation and flotation.That last bit, by the way, is the key and an advantage that non-ionic rare earths enjoy over the better-known ionic rare earths, according to Deysel. He says his mined ore can be reduced in volume by up to 95 per cent courtesy of simple magnetic separation followed by a flotation circuit.And the kicker?When that mass reduces by 95 per cent, the grade jumps by more than 800 per cent, leaving just 5 per cent of the mass to be leached at a ridiculously high concentrate that assays between 10,000ppm and 20,000ppm TREO.While there is still work to do, Deysel is looking to show that reduced mass will ultimately lead to smaller mining plants, lower capex and lower opex given the crazy high reduction in volume.Alongside ANSTO, Critica has enlisted specialist processing firm Minutech for parallel leach testing on the composite concentrate, while Hanoi-based GAVAQ is building the pilot beneficiation plant that will test the commercial viability of its flowsheet.Critica will be looking to the soon-to-be-commissioned pilot plant to replicate or surpass the bench-scale results of mass reduction and grade increases. Those results will enable inputs for a scoping study, providing key data on tailings characteristics, flow sheet economics and processing efficiencies.Management believes vital decision-grade data will be revealed from the program, including recovery levels, concentrate specifications and reagent consumption, which will provide valuable direct inputs into its scoping study and help optimise the hydrometallurgical flow sheet.Approving the Jupiter pilot and appointing GAVAQ is a key step on our ‘scale, simplicity, speed’ roadmap. By upgrading before leaching, we reject about 95 per cent of mass and lift grades more than eight-fold ahead of hydrometallurgy. That translates into a smaller leach plant, lower reagent use and a cleaner, faster path to MREC.Critica Limited managing director Jacob DeyselIn the electric vehicle industrial magnet world, there are two types of rare earths: “lights” (think neodymium and praseodymium) and the even more lucrative “heavies” (dysprosium and terbium). While in percentage terms, Jupiter has more light rare earths than heavies, the sheer scale of the deposit still sees the contained metal count within the deposit for heavy rare earths clock in at a staggering 280,000 tonnes.As if cued in, the broader rare earths market also appears to be entering another bullish phase, in part boosted by recent positive moves in the US.According to research from leading UK bank Barclays, demand for magnet rare earths is expected to grow five-fold by 2040.Neodymium-praseodymium prices have already rebounded in recent months from US$66/kg to nearly US$97/kg, according to the Shanghai Metals Market website. The US has effectively guaranteed a floor price for Mountain Pass of US$110/kg, reflecting the strategic value of these critical inputs to at least the US. There is even talk that the Australian Government might put its hand in its pocket to do something similar.Jupiter’s mineralisation has other advantages too. It kicks off just a few metres below surface, cutting down expensive strip ratios dramatically and it has extremely low nuisance minerals present, such as uranium and thorium, which are known to make like difficult in other projects.And even though Jupiter screams scale, it is just one of six deposits at Critica’s broader Brothers play, pointing to a project that will easily muscle its way onto the global stage if Critica and its army of technocrats can crack the processing code for non-ionic rare earths.For instance, the Aurora and Juno prospects have already returned up to an impressive 4256ppm TREO and magnet rare earths up to 34 per cent of the TREO content.Jupiter is a standout asset with a massive magnet rare earths resource at shallow depth in a tier-one location that ticks almost all the boxes. However, for Critica to catapult from explorer to globally significant rare earths player, it still needs to crack the non-ionic rare earths processing code. With an army of PhDs and external technocrats working on the issue around the clock, don’t be surprised if it manages to turn massive resources into massive revenues sometime soon – or better still... The Donald comes knocking.Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"}}}