Aussie rare earth juniors shine as US dollars flood Mountain Pass

The Age

2 days ago

There are moments when policy collides with geology, and when it does, fortunes can shift overnight. Last week, the United States Department of Defence (DoD) took a blowtorch to global critical minerals strategy, inking a transformative agreement with MP Materials to accelerate rare earth magnet independence.
And just like that, a cluster of ASX-listed explorers, not just in and around MP's Mountain Pass mine in California, but also those with the potential for critical low-cost rare earth production in other favourable locations, find themselves thrust into the geopolitical spotlight.
Locksley Resources, Dateline Resources, Bayan Mining and Minerals, Viridis Mining and Minerals, Eclipse Metals and Red Metal might not be household names. But each holds a piece of ground that now looks an awful lot more valuable, simply because of where it is and what it could become. Welcome to the new world of critical mineral real estate, where the Pentagon is your neighbour and proximity might be among the best commodities of all.
The MP deal is a monster. It will see the DoD become MP Materials' biggest shareholder, underwrite a 10-year offtake agreement for rare earth magnets and bankroll building a second US processing facility. It's not just about shovels and ore - this is industrial policy at full throttle. The goal? Break China's grip on the global magnet supply chain and resurrect a wholly American capability from mine to magnet. And at the centre of it all is MP's Mountain Pass - the only operational rare earths mine in the US.
'This is the most assertive US industrial policy move since the global financial crisis...'
Locksley Resources managing director Nathan Lude
Zoom out just a few kilometres and you'll find ASX-listed Locksley Resources with its El Campo project sitting neatly along strike from Mountain Pass. Its tenements are surrounded on all sides by MP's holdings. It has rock chip samples grading up to 12.1 per cent total rare earth oxides and 3.19 per cent neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr). MP Materials even tried to muscle in - unsuccessfully challenging Locksley's title with the Bureau of Land Management. The bureau sided with the junior, and now drilling permits are in hand with rigs set to roll in September.
According to Locksley managing director Nathan Lude, the significance of the MP deal could not be greater: ' This is the most assertive US industrial policy move since the global financial crisis, and it places Locksley in a unique position to benefit from this strategic realignment. With two fully permitted projects in California, including our El Campo rare earths and Desert antimony assets, we are focused on advancing our multi-commodity, critical minerals drilling programs in the next eight weeks and truly look forward to the opportunity ahead for our investors.'
Notably, as well as its El Campo project, Locksley holds the Desert antimony mine, historically mined in the 1930s. With surface samples returning up to 46 per cent antimony and approvals now locked in, the project adds a critical minerals angle the US government might just find hard to ignore. After all, antimony imports currently account for more than 80 per cent of US demand with most of it coming from China.
Another neighbour is Dateline Resources, the owner of the Colosseum project, just 10km from Mountain Pass. Historically explored for gold, Colosseum holds a 27.1 million tonne JORC-compliant gold resource at 1.26 grams per tonne (g/t) - a glittering prize in its own right.