Latest Mining And Critical Minerals News

Mount Ridley Mines says its patent-pending Selectro process recovered 95.5% of vanadium from a third-party titanomagnetite sample, while also recovering titanium and iron. The result broadens the process beyond scandium and bauxite, although commercial economics and scale-up remain untested.

Hastings Technology Metals has completed its 49% Thai processing plant acquisition and is targeting first mixed rare earth chloride production in the June 2027 quarter. But the company ended September with A$1.85 million in cash, leaving funding the immediate test for both its downstream strategy and Yangibana development.

Element 25 has reshaped the commercial and funding framework for its planned Louisiana HPMSM facility, retaining a US$166 million U.S. Department of Energy grant while ending its existing GM agreements. Revised Stellantis arrangements are agreed in principle but still require definitive documents, leaving the project’s replacement financing plan central to the next phase.

Volt Resources has secured US$5.4 million in fully funded support for its Alabama graphite strategy, but ended the September quarter with only A$170,000 in cash. The company is also managing lower-than-planned Ukrainian production, cancelled Tanzanian mining licences and a partly conditional A$1.5 million capital raising.

Hastings Technology Metals has completed its 49% acquisition of a Thai hydrometallurgical plant, with upgrades targeting 12,000 tonnes per annum of Mixed Rare Earth Chloride output. The company now faces the harder test: commissioning the facility, securing customers and converting a contracted feedstock position into sales.

EcoGraf has identified a potential 20% increase in Epanko’s Stage 1 production capacity, while contracted European offtake has doubled to 40,000 tonnes per annum. The company is advancing debt financing and downstream plans, but its higher-output case remains outside the current financing base case.

InVert Graphite has secured outright ownership of Curtin University’s RapidPulse technology while advancing a 2.56 million tonne contained graphite resource at Kumba. The company ended September with A$3.2 million in cash, giving it an estimated 5.5 quarters of funding at the latest spending rate.

Mount Ridley has lodged a second provisional patent application for an adapted Selectro chemistry targeting industrial metal feedstocks, following first-pass bauxite recoveries of 92% aluminium and 97% iron. Gallium results are still pending, and the process has not yet been optimised for bauxite.

American Tungsten & Antimony has produced one antimony ingot assaying 99.8% from US-mined material, meeting the highest ASTM B237 grade and exceeding the Regulus II specification. The result comes as the company pursues US government funding and offtake arrangements, although no commitments have been secured and AT4 does not yet control the relevant assets.

Renascor has produced battery-grade purified spherical graphite at demonstration scale, achieving 99.97% carbon purity through its hydrofluoric acid-free process. The result strengthens the commercialisation case, but Siviour graphite trials, customer qualification and project financing are still ahead.

Hastings Technology Metals has cut its annual loss sharply, but its latest report flags a material uncertainty over whether the pre-production rare earths company can secure the funding needed for Yangibana and its proposed Thai processing plant. The uncertainty comes as Wyloo seeks to sell its 60% Yangibana stake despite a study showing attractive project economics.

Cobalt Blue has secured a US$150,000 contract to deliver key technical work for Glomar Minerals’ planned US polymetallic nodule refinery. The work takes Project Infinity into a formal Preliminary Economic Analysis, although the project remains at an early evaluation stage and its cost estimates carry a wide accuracy range.