Victory Metals (ASX:VTM) has announced ‘exceptional’ metallurgical leaching test results from flotation concentrate at the wholly owned North Stanmore Heavy Rare Earth Project in Western Australia, noting that it represents both a technical and economic breakthrough.
Test Work was conducted on concentrate produced from Victory’s flotation program, which resulted in a 48x upgrade to the 5.9% total rare earth oxide, while rejecting around 95% of the feed mass into tailings.
Subsequent leaching has delivered 70.9% dysprosium, 70.2% terbium, and 75.1% yttrium using low acid consumption and standard agitated leach tank conditions at atmospheric pressure.
Victory’s process sets it apart from others that require high temperature acid cracking with very high sulphuric acid consumption to achieve flotation results.
By avoiding the traditional acid-cracking process, Victory calculates savings of $1 billion in associated capital expenditure, as determined based on the capital expenditure requirements of peer companies.
Chief Executive Officer Brendan Clark says that the results highlight the uniqueness of the concentrate at North Stanmore.
“There is nothing like it in the western world, and we expect high demand as a result,” Clark says.
“The fact we can separate out the valuable elements without high temperatures and high acid consumption puts us at a significant advantage to peers.
“Our product can be shipped as general cargo with significant rations of the rare earths that matter and that the western world needs: dysprosium, terbium, and yttrium.
“Our plan is to develop a simple, low-cost flotation circuit and sell our concentrate directly to Western markets.”
Victory plans to sell its heavy rare earth concentrate to the global markets.
Victory Metals is focused on exploration and development of the flagship North Stanmore Project located in the Cue Region of Western Australia.
Write to Amy Rotman at Mining.com.au
Images: Victory Metals
