Mount Ridley Mines reports world's largest scandium resource

Mount Ridley Mines (ASX: MRD) has announced a significant upgrade to its Grass Patch project in Western Australia, reporting what it describes as the world’s largest publicly reported JORC-compliant scandium resource. The upgraded resource estimate stands at 946Mt at 50.1ppm, containing approximately 47,357 tonnes of scandium metal.

This upgrade represents more than double the company’s previous estimate of 367.98Mt. The project, located near Esperance, also hosts gallium and heavy rare earth resources. The company is utilizing its proprietary Selectro™ leach process, which has shown an 80% scandium recovery rate in initial testwork.

The development comes amid increasing global efforts to secure supply chains for critical minerals like scandium, which are essential for defense alloys, aerospace, and fuel cells, and are currently dominated by Chinese supply.