Koppamurra clay in South Australia's southeast shows hope as major rare earths source to rival China
Australian Rare Earths was given exploration leases for 4,000 square kilometres in South Australia and Victoria (see map) with its exploration for rare earths starting at Koppamurra near Naracoorte in South Australia’s southeast.
Australian Rare Earths announced in 2023 that its ionic clay deposit at Koppamurra near Naracoorte in South Australia’s southeast had increased by 25% – seen as a big chance for Australia to become a major global supplier rivalling China. Koppamurra deposits had all four key rare earth elements – praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium – important for producing permenant magnets that were crucial to green technologies such as electic vehiels and wind turbines.
Expanding the Koppamurra site, that was still being explore, in 2023, would take the deposit to more than 100 million tonnes of clay that was rich with 80,000 tonnes of rare-earth oxide. But the target of Australian securities exchange-listed Australian Rare Earths was to grow the deposit to 1.4 billion tonnes of rare-earth mineralised clay.
Australian Rare Earths had been given exploration leases for 4,000 square kilometres in South Australia and Victoria, with most resources in South Australia. Managing director Rick Pobjoy said China had a 95% “stranglehold” on the world’s rare-earth permanent magnet supply. This risked efforts decarbonise the world through the using electric vehicles and wind turbines.
Pobjoy said the whole region around Koppamurra was endowed with rare earths in the clays, with potential to produce over for multi-generational production. Significantly, Koppamurra contained “heavy” rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium, unlike many other mines around the world that only had “light” rare earths. “Heavy” material was it is crucial for the current technology in electric vehicles and wind turbines. Koppomurra mine would be the only clay-hosted rare earth deposit in Australia, unlike others that were often in rocks that needed a lot of noisy crushing and blasting.
South Australian government energy and mining minister Tom Koutsantonis said the Koppamurra project “stands to significantly advance South Australia’s position as a global leader for critical minerals exports”. South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy chief executive Rebecca Knol said as global demand for clean energy increases, so too would the demand for rare-earths: “Exploration is critical to ensuring a future pipeline of resource projects in South Australia and is key to increasing the resources sector’s already-significant economic contribution to the state.”
Australia Sovereign Capability Alliance director Martin Hamilton-Smith said rare-earth mining presented “new opportunities for Australian local investment and ownership. A national strategy to ensure rare-earth investments develop under sovereign ownership and control would lock in value and long-term benefit for Australian taxpayers, financiers, investors, miners and skilled workers.”
