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    ABx rare earths grants: leach testwork and project economics for mine planners

    March 20, 2026|

    Reviewed by Joe Ashwell

    ABx rare earths grants: leach testwork and project economics for mine planners

    First reported on Australian Mining

    30 Second Briefing

    ABx Group has secured roles in two Federal Government-backed research initiatives to advance rare earths extraction from its ionic adsorption clay deposits in northern Tasmania and bauxite-hosted resources in Queensland. The grants, awarded under national critical minerals and industry growth programmes, will fund testwork on low-acid leach processes, beneficiation flowsheets and pilot-scale recovery of magnet rare earths such as neodymium and praseodymium. Outcomes could materially affect project economics, tailings chemistry and permitting pathways for clay-hosted rare earths developments in Australia.

    Technical Brief

    • Research includes testwork on low-acid leach chemistries to minimise reagent consumption and aggressive acid use.
    • Beneficiation flowsheet development will examine pre-concentration options to upgrade rare earth grades before leaching.
    • Tailings characterisation will assess how modified leach conditions alter tailings mineralogy, pH and potential contaminants.
    • Outcomes are expected to inform mine design, process plant configuration and tailings storage permitting for clay-hosted rare earths.

    Our Take

    ABx Group’s critical minerals work in Australia links directly to its Deep Leads ionic clay rare earths project in Tasmania, where related coverage in December 2025 highlighted low-acid, ambient-temperature heap leach testwork that could materially lower processing costs versus conventional hard-rock rare earths operations.

    Our database shows only a subset of the 1094 Mining stories and 115 critical minerals pieces involve ionic clay rare earths in Australia, so ABx Group is positioning itself in a relatively uncrowded domestic niche where permitting and ESG narratives can be as important as grade and tonnage.

    The earlier production of a mixed rare earth carbonate sample at Deep Leads, noted in a December 2025 article, suggests ABx Group is already moving along the value chain beyond simple exploration, which can make government grants more likely to target scale-up and commercialisation rather than pure research.

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    Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.

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