And just as technology developments are going to transform energy, the minerals industry, including rare earths, will follow.
Australia is a leader in the non-China world in pioneering new terbium and gold extraction methods.
The Morgan family is best known for opinion polls, but Gary Morgan, via Haoma Mining, has spent 15 years developing new treatment technology which, on a pilot scale, achieves very high terbium recoveries. Australia has the potential to relieve the chronic shortages.
The US is looking to Ukraine to relieve its long-term terbium and other heavy rare earths shortages. But Ukraine deposits require further testing and heavy investment.
If it can be scaled up, the Australian technology will slash costs and speed up the availability of terbium. In addition, the technology could create a major gold operation in the Pilbara.
It will be vital for Australia’s defence relationship with the US to keep the issue of tariffs and rare earths totally separate.
I don’t believe the Australian government is aware of the potential of the technology breakthrough known as the ‘‘Elazac’’ process.
At least in theory and assuming the pilot can be scaled, Australia could be providing terbium concentrate within a year. However, the concentrates produced by Elazac will need to be refined either by an existing refinery in the US or a new operation in Australia or the US.
But once the bureaucrats, Aboriginal groups and environmentalists discover what could happen, a multitude of applications will descend on the project, aiming to delay it by a globally disastrous three or four years.
Whoever wins the next election may need to use defence and other powers to insulate this development so it can be fully tested and, if the tests are successful, brought into production in the shortest possible time.
Writing about any process in the pilot stage is hazardous, but the process is already creating cashflow from gold, and it is a remarkable family story with potential to change Australia’s involvement in Western technology.
The Elazac process is based on separating tiny parts of material. It was developed to extract gold economically in WA’s Bamboo Creek Valley and in tailings from previous mining.
To become cashflow-positive in treating gold, the Morgan family has spent an incredible $150m over 15 years of trial and error to develop the process. There were many disappointments that would have caused most large public companies to abandon the project.
In the rare earths pilot, after first extracting the gold via Elazac, the terbium and other heavy rare earths were extracted via an adapted version of Elazac. Costs were slashed.
What makes the project so fascinating is the resource estimates are partly based on drilling undertaken some 30 years ago by BHP via its gold mining operations, which were in joint venture with Haoma. BHP later sold gold interests to Newmont, but Haoma kept the 1996 BHP cores.
Terbium was not discovered until 2019, when fresh samples from the Bamboo Creek Valley were examined at The University of Melbourne’s electron microscope scanning facility.
The Bamboo Creek Valley deposits have had a chequered history. They were once owned by Leopold Minerals, which hit the headlines in the 1970s when a manager was convicted for doctoring results in nickel areas held by the company.
Leopold became Kitchener Mining and was absorbed into Morgan’s Haoma. Along the way, CRA, the Australian arm of Rio Tinto, established a conventional gold plant built by WMC. In addition, Anglo Gold and De Beers (looking for diamonds) were involved.
Morgan is the son of the late Roy Morgan, who started what became Australia’s largest opinion poll organisation. Morgan and Michelle Levine still operate Morgan Research.
Morgan used the cashflow from the family opinion poll business to fund most of the $150m mining technology development.
He believed with a passion there was a better way to extract gold and other minerals from suitable fine ore material, including tailings dumps.
Morgan is not a geologist, but applied his statistical knowledge of likely outcomes to the business of separating minerals’ tiny parts. For Morgan, it became a passion that overrode the disappointments.
He lent large sums to Haoma, which was listed on the ASX but later left the bourse.
Haoma shares are listed via a private share trading hub (Ecosystem) operated through PrimaryMarkets.
Morgan’s loans have now become equity, and he owns 83 per cent of Haoma.
Malcolm Broomhead, a former CEO of Norths and Orica plus a non-executive director at BHP, bought a stake in the company partly because he believed Elazac could produce strong revenue from gold.
Broomhead has now also become invested in the global terbium/rare earths business.
Haoma has dug a 100m long, 2m deep, 5m wide costean trench to better determine the potential.
Using the Elazac process, 12.8 grams per tonne of gold were recovered in an aqua regia solution.
In addition to the recoverable gold, samples returned terbium grades from 3400 parts per million to 10,800ppm, along with other rare earth minerals.
Such results are way above industry standards, but more work is required. The mining world is agog a statistician rather than and a geologist could produce such excellent results, albeit via a pilot.
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