Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM) to Secure 60% of Avondale Scandium Project as Seismic Survey Kicks Off at Fifield
- Noel Ong
- 17 minutes ago
- 9 min read
The company consolidates majority ownership and management of Avondale while turning the geophysics on across the heart of its district holdings.
At a Glance
Item | Description |
Company | Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM) |
Focus | Scandium, gold and copper — Fifield District, central NSW |
Location | ~70km northwest of Parkes, within the Lachlan Orogen |
Key development | Moving to 60% ownership and the manager role of the Avondale Project as partner Golden Plains Resources vests its 40% interest |
Avondale deposits | Melrose (1.1Kt Sc₂O₃), Currajong (3.1Kt Sc₂O₃), plus part of the Murga Scandium Deposit (12Kt Sc₂O₃) |
Other assets in district | Kars and Forest View Scandium Prospects; Kara Kara Gold Copper Prospect; Sorpresa Gold Silver Deposit (74.3Koz Au, 3.44Moz Ag) |
Current work | 2D seismic survey along a 9km traverse across the Fifield and Avondale Projects, run by Velseis Pty Ltd |
Survey targets | Margins of the Murga Intrusive Complex; northeast-oriented structures linked to gold mineralisation |
Neighbours | Rio Tinto's Burra Scandium Deposit; Sunrise Energy Metals' Syerston Scandium Deposit |
Market context | Global scandium oxide production ~40tpa; scandium on critical minerals lists of Australia, Canada, the EU and US |
Next steps | Seismic processing and interpretation, feeding into drill targeting |
Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM) is sharpening both its ownership position and its geological understanding of the Fifield District in central New South Wales.
The company has confirmed it will move to a 60% interest in the Avondale Project after its exploration partner, Golden Plains Resources (GPR), gave notice of its intent to vest a 40% interest under the terms of the Avondale Earn-In Agreement. The move leaves Rimfire holding the majority stake and operational control of the project going forward.
At the same time, a seismic survey is now underway at Fifield, approximately 70km northwest of Parkes — a program designed to map the geological architecture partly beneath the very ground the Avondale transaction consolidates, and to feed directly into the planning of forthcoming drilling programs.
How the Deal Is Structured
Under the terms of the Earn-In Agreement, GPR's 40% interest will vest once it satisfies its expenditure obligations. Once vested, the two parties will establish an unincorporated joint venture, with Rimfire serving as Manager. Both parties will then fund future work programs on a pro rata basis.
Avondale: Majority Ownership in the Scandium Epicentre
The Avondale transaction consolidates Rimfire's position in one of the most strategically located scandium addresses in the country.
Avondale sits within the Fifield District — described by the company as Australia's scandium epicentre — roughly 70km northwest of Parkes in central New South Wales. The project lies adjacent to Rio Tinto's Burra Scandium Deposit and Sunrise Energy Metals' Syerston Scandium Deposit (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Fifield Scandium Projects showing Rimfire and third-party projects, Scandium Deposits and prospects (Source: RIM ASX Announcement)
Avondale is not a greenfield holding. The project hosts the Melrose and Currajong Scandium Deposits, carrying 1.1Kt and 3.1Kt of scandium oxide respectively.
It also contains the Kars and Forest View Scandium Prospects, along with the Kara Kara Gold Copper Prospect.
In addition, the north-western portion of the larger Murga Scandium Deposit — which holds 12Kt of scandium oxide — falls within the Avondale Project boundary. (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Fifield and Avondale Projects showing location of Scandium and Gold Deposits, and key prospects (Source: RIM ASX Announcement)
Seismic Survey Underway at Fifield
With majority ownership of Avondale secured, Rimfire's attention turns to the subsurface. The seismic survey aims to strengthen the company's understanding of the area's geological architecture and the geological setting of the numerous scandium, gold and copper mineral occurrences within the district, with the data to be used in planning upcoming drilling programs.
The program has two specific targets. First, the survey will examine the geometry of the margins of the Murga Intrusive Complex, which hosts the Murga Scandium Deposit and its 12Kt of scandium oxide. Second, it will test the significance of several northeast-oriented structures thought to host localised gold mineralisation — such as the Sorpresa Gold Silver Deposit, which carries 74.3Koz of gold and 3.44Moz of silver (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Fifield Scandium Projects showing Rimfire and third-party projects with the area of seismic survey highlighted in Yellow (Source: RIM)
The 2D survey is being run along a 9-kilometre, southeast-oriented traverse through the central portion of the Fifield and Avondale Projects by specialist contractor Velseis Pty Ltd, using its Mini-SOISE system (Figure 4). Acquisition is expected to take at least three field days, with processing and interpretation to follow shortly after. The company has flagged a further update once results are in hand.
Figure 4: Velseis Pty Ltd Mini-SOISE system (Source: RIM ASX Announcement)
The geography is worth noting. The traverse crosses ground spanning both the Fifield and Avondale Projects — meaning the structural picture it produces will inform drill targeting on the very tenements over which Rimfire has just assumed the Manager's role.
The Scandium Market Backdrop
The strategic logic behind consolidating scandium ground becomes clearer against the backdrop of how the metal's market actually works. Scandium sits in an unusual category — a market that is tiny in tonnage but disproportionately high in strategic value. Global scandium oxide production has been running at only around 40 tonnes a year, with annual consumption estimated in the range of roughly 15 to 25 tonnes (Figure 5). In a market measured in tens of tonnes, Samso notes that a single credible project can shift the entire supply narrative.
Figure 4: Scandium Market Scale bar chart: 2022 (<40 t) vs 2024 (~40 t) with source notes. (Source: Samso)
That value comes from function rather than volume. Adding a fraction of a percent of scandium to aluminium produces alloys that are lighter, stronger, more weldable and more heat- and corrosion-resistant — properties prized in aerospace, defence and advanced manufacturing — while scandium-bearing ceramics also play a role in solid oxide fuel cells used in clean-energy systems. Scandium appears on the critical minerals lists of Australia, Canada, the European Union and the United States.
Supply, however, is highly concentrated, with China dominating primary production and refining, and most output historically recovered only as a by-product. Samso points to rising Western interest in securing alternative supply, including reported moves by the U.S. Defence Logistics Agency to buy scandium oxide for strategic stockpiles.
Against that picture, New South Wales has emerged as Australia's most concentrated scandium province — described by Samso as the country's scandium hotspot, or the "Kalgoorlie of scandium" — hosting projects spanning exploration through to construction-ready assets, including those of Sunrise Energy Metals, Scandium International Mining and Rimfire.
Why It Matters
Securing majority ownership and management of a project that already contains defined scandium resources — and which sits shoulder to shoulder with major-company deposits held by Rio Tinto and Sunrise Energy Metals — strengthens Rimfire's standing in the Fifield scandium district. In a supply-constrained market where new, Western-aligned sources carry outsized strategic weight, district-scale consolidation of defined resources and exploration targets is the kind of positioning that matters.
The seismic survey adds the next layer. Taken together, the picture is of a company moving in sequence: secure control of the ground first, then build the structural understanding needed to drill it intelligently. With Rimfire stepping in as Manager, the company gains direct say over how that next phase of work is planned and executed across the Avondale tenements — and before long, it should have a much clearer picture of what lies beneath them.
Samso Concluding Comments
To understand the Rimfire Pacific Mining story, potential investors and existing shareholders need to know the most important aspect of "investing" in this sector and that is patience. Projects such as what Rimfire Pacific Mining is proposing will take time and we are talking about multiple years. There is nothing going to happen in weeks nor months. The increasing in ownership of Avondale is a good start and it is a "cheap" way to develop what may become a significant critical mineral story.
When the "Critical Mineral" slogan starting its journey, there was a plethora of "minerals" being touted as of importance but in reality, there are only a few that is actually of importance. The actual rareness of the minerals have been confused with a economic and geopolitical bottleneck as opposed to be rare geologically. Lithium and the Rare Earths is prime example. There is not a lack of but rather than a downstream issue which is actually the problem in the chain.
Check out the Coffee with Samso conversation what I had with Tim Craske where he clearly lays out the insights we all should have when we talk about the Critical Metals conversation. Understanding what the term "Critical Metals" in the context of what Rimfire Pacific Mining could deliver is important.
The two mineral that I see as geologically rare is Tungsten and Scandium. Some say Copper is critical and I agree but the metal copper is not rare geologically. Rimfire Pacific Mining, for Samso, is all about consolidating an economical deposit that is literally the jewel in the crown. As we have established, the Fifield are is a Tier-1 global location for Scandium. The likes of Rio Tinto wanting to spend a large sum of money developing a downstream process in the area is prove that if you want Scandium, this is the place to be.
Hence, we all know that companies like Rio Tinto invest in the long term and their outlook for developing projects are always measured in multiple of years to decades, investors look for leverage for their investments must start to investigate the merits of Rimfire Pacific Mining and start the DYOR process.
About Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited
Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited is an ASX-listed critical minerals exploration company advancing a portfolio of projects across the Lachlan Orogen and Broken Hill districts of New South Wales, with its principal focus on the Fifield District, approximately 70km northwest of Parkes in the state's central west.
Fifield sits within one of Australia's most significant mineral provinces. The district lies along the Lachlan-Cadia Lineament, in a region that hosts major operations including the Cadia Valley gold-copper mines and the Northparkes copper-gold mine, and has a mining history stretching back more than a century. More recently, the district has emerged as Australia's premier scandium address, hosting deposits held by Rio Tinto, Sunrise Energy Metals and Rimfire itself.
The company's portfolio combines 100%-owned and earn-in ground. Its wholly owned projects comprise the Green View Cobalt Project, the Valley Project and the East Cowal Copper Gold Project. Its earn-in interests cover the Avondale and Fifield Projects, which together host multiple scandium deposits — including Melrose, Currajong and the Murga Scandium Deposit — alongside gold and copper prospects. Rimfire is also credited with the greenfields discovery of the Sorpresa Gold Silver Deposit at Fifield, which remains part of the district's exploration story.
Rimfire's strategy is to build a district-scale position across scandium, gold and copper in central New South Wales — consolidating ownership, deepening the geological understanding of its ground, and advancing its assets through systematic exploration. The company is led by Managing Director and CEO David Hutton, a geologist with more than three decades of experience in the minerals industry.
The company also holds the Malamute Scandium Prospect approximately 40km north of Murga on its 100%-owned Rabbit Trap Project, offering regional resource growth optionality.
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