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neWs

Familiar face looks into

Browns Range

ark Tory has been in the rare earths welcomed further support from both the temporarily suspended at Browns Range at
Mgame long enough to provide meas- Federal and West Australian Governments the peak of the pandemic earlier this year.
ured commentary on what is a complex in developing the critical minerals sector. A partial restart to operations at Browns
market. “We have a lot of support, but the prob- Range took effect in August, while the com-
Even so, the impact that China wields in lem is getting western money, the ones that pany is on track to clear its debt burdens to
the heavy rare earths (HRE) sector still pro- put their hands in their pockets are the Chi- EPC contractor Sinosteel ($2.1 million) and
vides challenges for the likes of Tory, who nese. In relation to rare earths, my gut feel JHY Investments Pty Ltd ($4 million con-
replaced George Bauk as chief executive of is that something is going to happen in the vertible notes) by the end of the year.
Northern Minerals Ltd in July. shorter term rather than the medium term A $22 million private placement and $10
Tory has been with Northern Minerals for with China,” Tory said. million SPP completed in April and June,
almost a decade serving the company as “This is my personal feeling only; I don’t respectively, has provided Tory with some
chief financial officer and company secre- think China is too far off their supply meet- clout to take Northern Minerals along its
tary. ing their own domestic needs. I don’t know preferred path in the HRE sector.
“Rare earths is a difficult market; I have how much they have stockpiled while “COVID enabled us to sit back and take
been at Northern Minerals nearly eight they continue to make sure that there are stock. It has been a good thing for North-
years and I’m still learning. In that time, we no competitors in the space, but one day, ern Minerals to have been able to evaluate
have been trying to teach government, criti- which I don’t think is too far down the track, what the pilot plant has been doing over the
last 18 months, look at our financial situa-
tion and see where we want to move going
forward,” Tory said.
“We have reassessed what we really
want to do rather than continuing down the
path of wanting to run the whole operation Maximum
and trying to get results out of it. We’ve
gone through a thought process about what
it all means for us.”
Northern Minerals’ thinktank has de- gold extraction
livered plans for $5 million to be spent in
FY2021 on 16,500m of exploration drilling
at Browns Range, with greenfields targets
starting to be tested this month as well as Our team at IMO has proven capabilities in the design and management of gold testwork
follow-up drilling at the Dazzler and Ban-
shee deposits. programs, project development, commissioning and operations both in Australia & worldwide.
“Finding Dazzler lookalikes will be a pri-
ority for exploration in the next 12 months,
as its grades are up to three times the total
Browns Range resource grade. If we can
Browns Range is being primed to be a globally significant producer of dysprosium. find a few more of these it will help us real-
Production of HRE carbonate started in 2018 as part of a three-year pilot plant programme ise the current strategy to increase mine life
to assess the viability of a larger scale development at Browns Range to 20-plus years,” Tory said.
Meanwhile, Tory hopes the board ap-
cal minerals groups and the like what rare they are going to say ‘sorry we need it our- proval for procurement of the electrical
earths is about, how China dominates the selves’.” equipment for the ore sorting system will be
market and what’s needed in the future When that day arrives, Northern Minerals granted in the September 2020 quarter, al-
for us to have a non-China source of rare hopes to be in position to capture a portion lowing commissioning of the system to be Trust us to best develop your gold project
earths supply,” Tory told Paydirt. of the HRE market with material from its completed by the end of the March quarter
“China has over 98% of supply, but the Browns Range heavy rare earths project in 2021.
way they mine and process it is very en- WA’s Kimberley. “Once we have the ore sorting system
vironmentally unfriendly, but it is cheap for Browns Range remains the only project commissioned, we will be able to run addi-
them. The grades are low, but all of their to have successfully exported a commer- tional testwork at Browns Range on stock-
HRE companies are heavily subsidised, cial quantity of HRE outside of China after piles of mined ore to reconfirm the results
they don’t make money and they keep production of a mixed HRE carbonate two achieved in the laboratory testwork of this
prices for these heavy rare earths down so years ago. equipment. These results will provide valu-
there is no competition out there.” The company has had its battles since, able data around efficiency of the ore sort-
While China continues to keep rare namely a R&D tax dispute with the Austral- ing system which can be fed into a full-scale
earths competitors at bay, Tory’s personal ian Taxation Office which saw Northern feasibility study update,” Tory said.
view is that things are changing and a turn- Minerals receive a net refund of almost $10
ing point for the sector is not far away. He million in September, while operations were – Mark Andrews 14757 AB P +61 8 9254 6900 F +61 8 9322 1808 E imo@indmetops.com.au W www.indmetops.com.au

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