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Sep 16, 2025 – 12.00pm
www.afr.com/companies/mining/...e-earths-mine-20250915-p5mv6c
One of Australia’s most politically sensitive rare earths developers is banking on a 50 per cent rise in prices to support development of its next mine, underlining confidence that Western customers will pay more to loosen China’s stranglehold over critical minerals.
ASX-listed Northern Minerals said its $600 million Browns Range project in Western Australia was hoping to receive $US107 ($160) for each kilogram of rare earths sold over its 11-year life.
Northern Minerals is hoping for taxpayer backing for its rare earths project in Western Australia.
The price is about 53 per cent higher than the $US70 per kilogram that customers pay today for neodymium and praseodymium – minerals critical to the manufacture of high-tech weapons and electric vehicles.
Northern Minerals said prices could rise as high as $US138 per kilogram if the world moved to aggressively decouple from Chinese supply chains, which provide up to 90 per cent of the world’s rare earths.
Browns Range is particularly high in dysprosium and terbium; the two key “heavy” rare earth elements that were entirely supplied by China until Australian producer Lynas Rare Earths this year commenced selling small volumes from its Malaysia operations.
China curbed exports of terbium and dysprosium earlier this year in retaliation to the escalation of tariffs under policies implemented by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Sophisticated rare earth element magnets are essential components in the global shift towards decarbonisation and are found in wind turbines, jet engines, lasers, robots and computer chips.
The Albanese government has identified Perth-based Northern Minerals as strategically important to the development of a domestic processing industry for critical minerals to break China’s stranglehold on critical minerals.
Browns Range will supply Australia’s first fully integrated rare earths refinery, being built by Iluka Resources in Western Australian with $1.65 billion of government assistance. Northern Minerals has inked a deal with Iluka to supply 30,500 tonnes of rare earth oxides to the Eneabba refinery, with the hope that its minerals will attract a “non-China” premium.
“Northern Minerals will contribute to Australia’s efforts to establish a fully domestic value chain, reducing Western dependency on Chinese processing and setting a benchmark for secure, sovereign supply chains,” the company said.
“Browns Range’s value is underscored by actions by governments around the world to reduce reliance on single country supply chains,” it added, citing the Albanese government’s proposed $1.2 billion critical minerals stockpile and the $US400 million stake taken by Washington in US rare earths group MP Materials.
In its definitive feasibility study, Northern Minerals said the development of Browns Range would cost at least $592 million. The miner would assess the potential for taxpayer funding through either loans or direct equity stakes in the project.
The study was released the same week that the Australian Trade and Investment Commission is leading a delegation of critical minerals companies to the US to gauge sentiment for investment.
Northern Minerals attracted attention last year when the federal government intervened to force Chinese investors to sell out of the miner over foreign influence concerns. The probe was sparked when former chief executive Nick Curtis flagged suspicious share trading and requested that the Foreign Investment Review Board intervene.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers in June sued a China-linked Northern Minerals shareholder for defying his order to sell its stake.
At Northern Minerals’ annual general meeting last November, shareholders narrowly rejected the election of mystery Chinese businessman Enping Fu to the company’s board.
Northern Minerals last week posted a $27.3 million loss in the year to June 30, narrowing the previous year’s loss of $31.6 million. Shares in Northern Minerals have risen 75 per cent over the past year to 3.5 cents, giving the company a market capitalisation of $263 million.
