Key Highlights

  • Victory has executed a material transfer agreement giving it access to the C4P pilot plant at Curtin University.
  • The arrangement is aimed at pilot-scale production of mixed rare earth carbonate from heavy rare earth concentrate.
  • Concentrate from Victory’s Burswood pilot plant in Perth will be transferred to C4P during 2026 and 2027.
  • China has extended the suspension of certain additional rare earth export controls until 10 January 2027.

Victory Metals Limited (ASX:VTM) has executed a material transfer agreement with Curtin University that gives it access to the Cathode Precursor Production Pilot Plant, known as C4P, in Western Australia. The announcement dated 11 November 2026 describes the arrangement as a route for pilot-scale conversion of heavy rare earth concentrate into mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC), a product further along the processing chain than the concentrate Victory currently produces.

What the C4P access provides

The C4P Facility represents about A$18.4 million of processing infrastructure developed through collaboration between Curtin University, CSIRO and the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia. Victory says access to that equipment allows it to run large pilot-scale MREC production and product qualification without building an equivalent standalone plant. For a company at this stage of development, that reduces the Capital that would otherwise be needed to test the Downstream process.

The agreement sets up a defined pathway. Heavy rare earth mineral concentrate produced at the Burswood pilot plant in Perth will be transferred to C4P for downstream conversion. Process materials will move alongside the concentrate during 2026 and 2027, and MREC samples are intended to return to Victory for technical assessment and evaluation with potential offtake and refining partners.

Links to the North Stanmore resource

Victory’s flagship asset is the North Stanmore heavy rare earth and critical minerals project in the Cue region. In August 2026 the company announced a Mineral Resource Estimate of 278.8 million tonnes, including 70.67 million tonnes in the Measured category. The resource carries an overall heavy rare earth oxide to total rare earth oxide ratio of 36%, which is the characteristic the MREC pathway is designed to build on.

Victory’s stated aim is to move from mineral concentrate production towards higher-value downstream products. Whether MREC output reaches that stage will depend on pilot-scale results, which the company has not yet produced, and on commercial arrangements that are still to be negotiated.

Export controls and the market backdrop

The announcement was timed against a policy development in China. On 9 November 2026, Chinese authorities confirmed that the suspension of certain additional export controls, including measures for medium and heavy rare earth products and technologies, would be extended until 10 January 2027. The existing export licensing requirements remain in place, and the company argues that policy uncertainty keeps diversified Supply chains outside China a strategic priority.

Victory has pointed to potential customers in the United States, Europe, Japan, India, South Korea and Vietnam. Those markets are not guaranteed to buy from a pilot-stage supplier, and the pilot work has no commercial offtake attached at this point.

Final Word

The C4P agreement gives Victory a route into downstream processing without the cost of building its own plant, but the work is pilot-scale and the outcomes are not yet known. The company will need to show that MREC can be produced to specification, that third-party facility arrangements run to schedule and that offtake partners are prepared to commit. Those steps will determine whether the pathway moves beyond the pilot stage.