Key Highlights

  • Heavy rare earth concentrate from North Stanmore will be processed at pilot scale into a Mixed Rare Earth Carbonate (MREC).
  • Concentrate will be transferred to Curtin's C4P pilot plant during 2026 and 2027.
  • The C4P Facility represents about A$18.4 million of infrastructure developed by Curtin and its partners.
  • The agreement covers testwork rather than commercial production.

Victory Metals (ASX:VTM) has signed a Material Transfer Agreement with Curtin University that will allow heavy rare earth concentrate from its North Stanmore project, near Cue in Western Australia, to be processed at pilot scale into a Mixed Rare Earth Carbonate, commonly shortened to MREC. The agreement was reported on 11 November and covers testwork rather than commercial production.

Under the arrangement, concentrate produced at Victory's own pilot plant in Burswood, Perth, will be transferred to Curtin's Cathode Precursor Production Pilot Plant, known as C4P, during 2026 and 2027. MREC samples made there will be returned to Victory for technical assessment. The C4P facility represents about A$18.4 million of infrastructure developed by Curtin, CSIRO and the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia, and Victory said using it means the company does not need to build an equivalent facility of its own.

Why an intermediate product matters

A mixed carbonate is an intermediate step between a mineral concentrate and separated rare earth oxides. Producing it at pilot scale lets a developer show that its feed behaves predictably through Downstream chemistry, and gives prospective buyers or refiners physical samples to evaluate. For an explorer moving towards development, that kind of evidence is typically needed before offtake discussions can progress beyond preliminary stages.

Chief executive Brendan Clark described access to C4P as "a significant development for Victory Metals". The company indicated that the samples are intended to support evaluation of potential offtake and refining partners. However, it also made clear that any such arrangements depend on further testwork and on commercial agreements that have not yet been negotiated.

The North Stanmore resource

North Stanmore's mineral resource estimate, published in August 2026, totals 278.8 million tonnes, of which 70.67 million tonnes sit in the Measured category. Victory has highlighted a heavy rare earth oxide to total rare earth oxide ratio of 36 per cent, a measure of how much of the contained rare earths are the heavier, generally scarcer elements such as dysprosium and terbium.

The agreement arrives against a shifting policy backdrop. On 9 November, China's Ministry of Commerce and customs authority said a suspension of certain additional export controls on medium and heavy rare earths would run until 10 January 2027. Supply arrangements for heavy rare earths outside China have attracted growing attention from governments and end users, although the timing and form of any future Chinese measures remain uncertain.

Limitations and next steps

The agreement is a materials and testwork arrangement, not a processing contract or offtake deal. Pilot-scale results do not guarantee that a commercial plant would achieve the same performance, and the Economics of producing MREC from North Stanmore have not been demonstrated in a feasibility study on the information available. Funding for development, permitting and product specifications acceptable to customers are all matters still to be resolved.

The immediate programme involves producing concentrate at Burswood, shipping it to C4P through 2026 and 2027, and assessing the MREC samples that come back. Those results are expected to inform Victory's discussions with potential partners, with any commercial terms subject to separate negotiation.

For now, the arrangement gives Victory a route to downstream product samples without the Capital cost of building its own carbonate circuit. Whether that leads to binding commercial agreements will depend on how the samples perform and on commercial terms that, according to the company, have not yet been negotiated. Observers will watch closely for the first technical assessment of the returned samples, which should give an early indication of whether North Stanmore concentrate can be converted into a carbonate product of interest to refiners.