Mount Ridley Mines has revealed a massive resource upgrade at its Grass Patch project near Esperance in Western Australia, establishing the deposit as the largest publicly reported JORC-compliant scandium resource in the world.
The upgraded Grass Patch Inferred Mineral Resource now stands at 946 million tonnes grading 50.1 parts per million scandium, containing an estimated 47,357 tonnes of scandium metal, or 72,637 tonnes of scandium oxide.
The expanded estimate was driven primarily by a highly cost-effective re-assay campaign targeting 3,271 historical drill pulp samples rather than expensive new drilling.
The shallow, regolith-hosted deposit spans two main zones across a 25-kilometre corridor. The scandium is co-located alongside the project’s existing heavy rare earth and gallium resources, allowing Mount Ridley to target multi-element extraction from a single processing circuit.
Initial testwork using the company’s patent-pending Selectro Process demonstrated simultaneous recovery rates of up to 80 per cent for scandium alongside heavy rare earths and gallium.
Mount Ridley Managing Director Allister Caird said the milestone comes at a crucial time for Western critical mineral supply chains, as allied governments actively seek alternatives to dominant supply sources in China.
“Holding the largest scandium resource in the world, alongside our proprietary Selectro Process, provides a genuine pathway for Mount Ridley to commercialise this resource together with our broader commodity base at Grass Patch,” Caird said.
Demand for scandium is accelerating rapidly due to its high-value applications in aerospace, defence, and solid oxide fuel cells.
The growing demand on the metal was recently highlighted when the US Department of War committed a US$400 million conditional loan to Sunrise Energy Metals for its Syerston scandium project in New South Wales.
With approximately 80 per cent of Mount Ridley’s tenure remaining untested, a Phase 2 re-assay program across the Grass Patch Complex is currently underway to further unlock the project’s scale.
The company is also progressing density testwork to support upgrading portions of the Inferred Resource to higher confidence categories, taking full advantage of the site’s proximity to regional infrastructure and the Esperance deepwater port.
