Critica Limited (ASX: CRI) has laid claim to Australia’s biggest clay-hosted rare earths discovery after revealing a mammoth 1.8 billion tonne maiden global resource grading 1700 parts per million (ppm) total rare earths oxides (TREO) at its Jupiter project - part of the company’s bigger Brothers project in Western Australia.
Included in the whopping resource, which was prepared by independent global consultancy SRK Consulting, 500 million tonnes running at 2200ppm TREO - with an impressive cut-off grade of 1800ppm - have been earmarked as high-grade.
Management said the near-surface and highly consistent nature of the globally significant deposit has also opened a myriad of options when it comes to future processing and development scenarios.
The maiden resource has come hot on the heels of first pass metallurgical testing that delivered an 830 per cent uplift in grade using a simple, room-temperature flotation process.
Test work run over multiple samples of Jupiter’s mineralisation lifted an initial grade of 1430ppm TREO into a remarkable high-grade concentrate of 13,310ppm TREO.
Notably, when 94.5pc of the material was removed, the remaining concentrated product - without being further optimised - still ran at a remarkable, rare earth elements (REE) recovery rate of more than 50 per cent.
The company is continuing to run disciplined testing on the mineralised material to boost recoveries, help by highly a regarded overseas specialist with experience to unlock the metallurgical idiosyncrasies of the deposit.
Although Jupiter is not a classic ionic clay deposit – a style that is revered because of the simple processing required, it is, nevertheless clay-hosted.
Coupled with its enormous size, grade and proximity to major infrastructure the company says there is every chance of finding a relatively cheap processing solution, once the metallurgists have solved the puzzle.
It is incredibly exciting to be able to unveil Australia’s premier clay hosted rare earths deposit – the numbers speak for themselves. Our maiden resource represents a major milestone that we have, rather remarkably, delivered in just over a year from announcing the discovery in November 2023.
Critica Limited Managing Director Philippa Leggat
Rare earth elements are crucial in producing high-performance magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and advanced electronics. Notably, Jupiter contains a highly valuable subset of these elements, including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium, which account for approximately 23pc of the total rare earth elements.
With $6 million in the bank as at the end of December, and most of the costly drilling now completed, Critica still appears to be in rare financial health. It will now push forward in the next few months with advanced metallurgical testing and some additional targeted drilling across several satellite deposits at Jupiter.
Adding to its near-term funding options, an asset that has been languishing on the company’s book for an extraordinary 18 years - but currently up for sale - is likely to be courting some sudden interest from potential buyers after China’s recent decision to ban the export of tungsten in retaliation for US tariffs.
The Mount Lindsay tungsten-tin project in Tasmania hosts one of the biggest undeveloped tin deposits in the world, contains more than 80,000t of tin metal and a significant 13,000t tungsten resource.
With China now determined to retain its tungsten purely for domestic use, 80pc of the global supply of the grey metal has instantly evaporated leaving western nations scrambling for alternative sources.
For a company that was at best treading water 12 months ago Critica has had a remarkably quick turnaround in fortunes.
The starting gun was fired started after Leggat, the new appointed managing director, decided to pivot the company by focusing its efforts on the Jupiter grounds – a project which had, until then, been largely sitting in the company’s “to do” file gathering dust.
Between selling its Riley iron ore assets in Tasmania, bringing two new sticky institutional investors on to the register with a $3.5m investment and raising a further $6m in a placement, the company was able to top up the bank balance with $12m in new funds.
Critica then set about drilling 40,000 metres of exploration holes into Jupiter, which has now resulted in the biggest ever clay-hosted discovery of rare earths in Australia.
All of this was achieved in little more than a year and for just a bit more than $6m in exploration expenditure.
Punters are likely to be hoping for a similar repeat performance in the coming year after the share price rallied 120pc in 2024. If Critica can unlock the metallurgical code to Jupiter’s - and they appear to be giving it a red-hot crack - then the punters are unlikely to be disappointed.
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