Critica slashes key cost at WA flagship rare earths project

ASX listed Critica Limited has landed another significant processing breakthrough at its massive Jupiter rare earths project near Mount Magnet in Western Australia’s Mid West, confirming a 30 per cent reduction in sulphuric acid consumption that could materially reduce future operating costs.

The result marks another milestone in the company’s methodical campaign to strip costs out of the development of the 1.8-billion-tonne Jupiter project, Australia’s largest clay-hosted rare earths resource.

Testwork confirmed acid consumption could be reduced to approximately one tonne of sulphuric acid per tonne of feed, down from the previous design basis of 1.4–1.6 tonnes. Management says the result strengthens the technical case for Jupiter as it finalises the project’s highly anticipated scoping study for release in the third quarter of 2026.

Independent programmes by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), GAVAQ and Australian Minmet Metallurgical Laboratories (AMML) all produced comparable outcomes. The consistent results provide confidence the lower acid consumption can be achieved under optimised conditions. At the same time, strong rare earths extraction rates were maintained, demonstrating the lower acid consumption did not come at the expense of metallurgical performance.

‘With optimisation now demonstrated we continue to strengthen the technical foundations of Jupiter as we finalise the Scoping Study.’

Today’s announcement is the latest win in a carefully sequenced optimisation campaign designed to attack every major cost centre in the Jupiter processing flowsheet. Critica has already demonstrated about 95 per cent mass rejection during beneficiation, boosted magnet rare earths oxide (MagREO) recovery to about 81 per cent and achieved a fourteen-fold upgrade to an intermediate concentrate grading about 3 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO). The latest breakthrough extends that progression by reducing downstream reagent consumption.

In simple terms, Critica’s strategy means that for every 100 tonnes of material mined, only about five tonnes may need to pass through the full chemical treatment process. The acid reduction makes processing the valuable five-tonne fraction even cheaper.

Sulphuric acid is one of the biggest operating cost drivers in rare earths processing. Lower reagent consumption has the potential to reduce transport, handling and processing costs, improving future project economics.

The company’s beneficiate-first development strategy aims to shrink the downstream chemical plant, reduce reagent use and deliver a simpler, lower-cost development.

Critica Limited chief executive officer Jacob Deysel said: “Our approach has been to systematically optimise each stage of the Jupiter processing flowsheet and these latest results represent another important step in that programme.”

The company will now continue hydrometallurgical optimisation and validation testwork while refining acid bake operating conditions and reagent consumption across varying feed grades. The latest metallurgical results will feed into downstream process optimisation, product qualification and the engineering work underpinning the Jupiter Scoping Study. The work is designed to further refine the processing flowsheet as management advances the Jupiter development programme.

With the project’s geology already well defined, management’s focus is now on proving the processing route can consistently deliver competitive operating costs at commercial scale. Each successive optimisation removes another layer of technical uncertainty as management works to convert Jupiter from a geological success into a development project.

Jupiter benefits from relatively low uranium and thorium levels, a characteristic that could simplify permitting, residue management and customer acceptance compared with some hard-rock rare earths deposits. Its more lucrative electric engine magnet rare earths inventory is well positioned to benefit from long-term demand driven by electric vehicles, robotics, artificial intelligence infrastructure, wind turbines and advanced defence technologies.

Critica’s work is unfolding against a backdrop of growing government support for Australia’s domestic critical minerals processing sector. Federal and state policy initiatives are aimed at securing sovereign supply chains and encouraging lower-cost, Western-aligned rare earths production.

While Jupiter remains the company’s flagship project, Critica’s other key project is the Mt Lindsay tin and tungsten project in Tasmania, broadening its exposure beyond rare earths. The complementary asset is also essential to advanced manufacturing, electronics and defence, giving the company leverage to another suite of critical minerals.

With a string of processing victories now under its belt, Critica is steadily transforming Jupiter from a not well-understood but giant rare earths discovery into what is shaping as a potentially commercially credible development project. The upcoming scoping study now looms large on the horizon as the company’s biggest test yet, showing whether its systematic processing improvements can convert immense geological scale into competitive project economics.

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