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Doug Bright
Critica Limited has nudged its Jupiter rare earths project another step closer towards a bankable development picture, with its latest pilot plant optimisation delivering 81 per cent recovery of magnet rare earth oxides (MREO) and 71 per cent recovery of total rare earth oxides (TREO).
The stronger numbers are especially important for the high-value MREO component that sits at the heart of the global electric motor supply chain and are key in the company’s broader push to sharpen Jupiter’s beneficiation pathway ahead of key engineering decisions.
The Jupiter project is the centrepiece of Critica’s Brothers project in WA’s Mid West and is already known for its massive scale, with a global resource of 1.8 billion tonnes. The company is pitching it as potentially Australia’s biggest and highest grade clay-hosted rare earths resource.
Notably, the deposit is rich in the magnet rare earths, neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium. It features continuous mineralisation across a 40-square-kilometre footprint, with exceptionally low levels of the deleterious elements uranium and thorium.
‘Importantly, we are also seeing strong recovery of high-value magnetic rare earths, with ~81% MagREO recovery.’
Critica Limited chief executive officer Jacob Deysel
In January, Critica launched a scoping study led by engineering group Sedgman to weave its mining, processing and infrastructure concepts into a capital-efficient pathway and establish baseline project economics.
More recently, the company also kicked off a 143-hole aircore drilling program across a 3km by 1km optimised resource footprint, with up to 10,000m of drilling to support a resource upgrade and mine-feed planning for the scoping study.
The company has also followed up with 58 regional aircore holes, co-funded under the WA Government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme, to expand its search footprint. The drilling targeted the Juno and Aurora prospects, south and northwest of Jupiter, as Critica hunts for additional upside across the broader Brothers system.
Critica Limited chief executive officer Jacob Deysel said: “This phase of work demonstrates continued progress at Jupiter as we advance pilot plant optimisation and Scoping Study definition. The pilot beneficiation programme is delivering materially improved performance, currently achieving ~71% TREO recovery, representing an approximate 45% improvement from previously reported results.”
On the metallurgy front, Critica says the intermediate concentrate continues to deliver an upgrade factor of 7.5 times that of the proposed feed material. Pilot-scale operations have now been shifted to a larger facility in Hai Phong, Vietnam, where they have resumed following the Lunar New Year break. The upgraded setup is expected to drive higher throughput, supported by additional cells and improved circuit configurations.
The company has also shipped extra mineralised sample material from Jupiter to feed the pilot plant, with 8.5 tonnes already in transit and another 10 to 20 tonnes slated to follow in the coming weeks.
The incoming material is set to support production of additional intermediate concentrate for downstream mixed rare earth product work. This will aid the company in validating product quality while also continuing background offtake discussions.
On the downstream side, parallel metallurgical programs are continuing with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Minutech and Phenikaa University.
The programs are looking at methods for optimising the company’s mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC) pathway. The labs have also been tasked with developing alternative hydrometallurgical options, including the possibility of heap-leaching the intermediate concentrate as a supplementary processing route.
With its Jupiter scoping study still on track for a June completion, Critica now has a growing set of real-world recovery figures and scale-up data to feed the engineer, delivering the sort of steady de-risking the market likes to see.
If the metallurgists can keep lifting recoveries while nailing down a clean, scalable flowsheet, Jupiter’s potentially giant “mine-to-magnet” story could be one to watch.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
