Japanese giant joins the Outback rush as all roads lead to tiny Julia Creek
A Japanese petrochemical giant has emerged as a major backer of a company that is targeting a small Outback town with 500 people as a potential site for new economy minerals.
The search for vanadium in Outback Queensland has been boosted by Idemitsu's stake
Idemitsu, which is known in Queensland for its role in coal, has bought a 32 per cent stake in Critical Minerals, which lists on the ASX today.
Critical Minerals is targeting vanadium, a commodity that was previously only used in pigments and as a protective layer in nuclear reactors but is also the core ingredient in grid-scale batteries. And Julia Creek is one of a handful of sites in the world where vanadium is in abundance.
A host of companies have started exploration there and Multicom Resources has started developing its St Elmo vanadium mine, 25 km from Julia Creek. Richmond Vanadium Technology has a $240 million project going through environmental approvals.
Critical Minerals owns the Lindfield vanadium project on a 295 sq/km site about 30km from Julia Creek and the $5 million it raised in its float will be used for progressing the project which exploration has revealed as a 210 million tonne resource which is also likely to contain high purity alumina.
Critical Minerals managing director Scott Drelincourt said he was pleased with the support from Idemitsu.
“The cornerstone investment would advance exploration across the company’s critical minerals portfolio while underpinning the development of the Lindfield (vanadium) project,” he said.
“Idemitsu’s strategic partnership and significant investment will allow us to add value to our shareholders while operating to the highest ESG standards.
“We believe vanadium has a critical role to play in the future of energy and are delighted to have Idemitsu Australia as a cornerstone investor.”
But Julia Creek, better known as pitstop for outback travellers and its dirt and dust festival, has another surprise.
Oil and lots of it.
Oil shale overlays some of the vanadium deposits and companies like QEM were keen to exploit it.
QEM announced this week that its testing a pilot plant for the project had passed its second stage. Vanadium extraction rates were above 90 per cent and a big improvement in its oil yields.
QEM managing director Gavin Loyden said the results ticked all the boxes for the company.
“To put it simply these test results are excellent,” he said.
“We have achieved increased extraction yields across both vanadium and oil, eliminated the deposit build up issues and demonstrated the effective operation of the pilot plant once again.
“We have enhanced the confidence in our extraction process beyond laboratory scale test work, which was our primary objective in these early tests.
“We will now continue the good work ot assess additional optimization potential.”
