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    Goschen critical minerals approval: design and risk notes for mine planners

    December 1, 2025|

    Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

    Goschen critical minerals approval: design and risk notes for mine planners

    First reported on Australian Mining

    30 Second Briefing

    Victoria has approved the mining work plan for VHM’s Goschen rare earths and mineral sands project in north-west Victoria, clearing a key regulatory hurdle for developing its zircon, rutile, ilmenite and rare earth orebody. The approval under the state’s Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act allows progression from exploration to mine construction planning, including detailed pit design, tailings storage and processing plant layout. For geotechs and mine planners, the decision signals that geotechnical models, groundwater controls and rehabilitation concepts have met Victorian regulator requirements, enabling more advanced design and contracting.

    Technical Brief

    • Mining work plan approval enables VHM to progress detailed engineering for the Goschen critical minerals operation.
    • Work plan sign-off is a precondition for VHM to finalise pit sequencing, haul road layouts and waste placement.
    • Regulatory clearance allows refinement of processing flowsheets for concurrent mineral sands and rare earth concentrate recovery.
    • Approval also unlocks progression of tailings deposition strategies aligned with Victorian rehabilitation and closure expectations.
    • With the work plan in place, VHM can now advance contracting strategies for mining, processing and ancillary civil works.

    Our Take

    Critical minerals pieces are still a small subset of our 93 Mining stories, so Goschen in Victoria stands out as one of relatively few Australian projects explicitly framed around critical minerals rather than bulk commodities.

    Within the 221 Projects and Contract Award-tagged items in our coverage, most critical minerals work is in Western Australia and Queensland, so a Victorian asset like Goschen signals a geographic broadening of Australia's critical minerals development pipeline.

    For operators and contractors, VHM’s Goschen approval in regional Victoria suggests future competition for specialist processing, environmental, and permitting expertise that has so far been concentrated around critical minerals hubs in other states.

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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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