The Scandium Market in 2026 - Does a lower scandium price make the investment case stronger?
- Noel Ong
- 24 hours ago
- 43 min read
The published price of scandium oxide has fallen by about a third since 2021. For a producer, a lower price cuts revenue per kilogram. For an aluminium industry that has never used scandium at scale because of its cost, a lower price brings it closer to being usable. This work separates what is observed from what is proposed, and asks which of the two prices for scandium an investor should be watching.
26 August 2026
Commodity Series | Scandium | Understanding the Scandium Market | Samso Market Strategy |
CONTENTS 1.00 What the price chart actually shows The three published scandium price series, and why they cannot be joined together. 2.00 The economics under the question A lower price and a bigger market are two different events in ordinary economics. 3.00 How a new material gets taken up Adoption models and learning curves, and what they will and will not tell you. 4.00 What the scandium research says Two peer-reviewed studies, their actual numbers, and the assumptions behind them. 5.00 The cost bridge into aluminium What the oxide alone adds to a tonne of aluminium-scandium alloy. 6.00 Two prices for the same element Chinese export licensing, a United States stockpile solicitation, and a gap of about ten times. 7.00 What is produced and what is announced About 80 tonnes made last year against 289 tonnes of announced capacity. 8.00 Three scenarios, tested against the evidence Niche, controlled Western expansion, and broad aluminium adoption. 9.00 Rimfire Pacific Mining as a case study One resource, one metallurgical test, and an ASX request for clarification. 10.00 Who owns Murga, who is next door, and who is paying An earn-in that can take 50.1 per cent, the neighbour, the new chair and the adviser. 11.00 The case against everything above The standing counterargument, and what would prove this piece wrong. 12.00 The Samso Way, seek the research Label every number before you use it. 13.00 Samso concluding comments A bigger market and a higher price are not the same trade. |
A NOTE ON THE VOCABULARY AND THE REFERENCES Every technical term is explained in plain English where it first appears. All of them are also collected in one box at the back, immediately above the references, so a term can be looked up again without hunting for it. Every source carries an identifier from [R1] to [R35]. The same identifier appears in the text at the point that source is used, so any number here can be traced to the document behind it. Clicking a marker jumps to the entry. |
1.00 — WHAT THE PRICE CHART ACTUALLY SHOWS
US$890 a kilogram in 2021, US$640 in 2025, and a third price that barely moved
Normally, when a commodity price falls from around a thousand dollars a kilogram towards six hundred, it reads as a warning. Scandium is a case where the number needs unpacking before it means anything. It is not traded on an exchange, public volumes are small, purity specifications vary, and quoted prices often describe different lot sizes and different commercial terms. A single ten-year line through all of that would suggest a continuity the evidence does not support. [R1]
The United States Geological Survey publishes three separate scandium price series in its annual Mineral Commodity Summaries, and it is careful to keep them apart. The first is scandium oxide at 99.99 per cent purity, sold in 5 to 100 kilogram lots. The second is scandium metal ingot at 99.999 per cent purity, sold in 1 to 10 kilogram lots. The third is aluminium-scandium master alloy containing 2 per cent scandium, sold in 1 to 30 kilogram lots. All three are quoted ex-works China, which means the price is at the seller's gate in China before freight, insurance or duty. USGS sources them from Asian Metal Ltd. [R1]
The three prices describe three steps in a chain, and each step is made from the one before it. Scandium oxide is a white powder, and it is what comes out of processing and what a producer actually sells. Scandium metal is what the oxide becomes after it is converted, which takes energy and a specialist plant. Aluminium-scandium master alloy is aluminium with about 2 per cent scandium already mixed through it, and it is the form a manufacturer buys so it can stir a small measured amount of scandium into a much larger batch of ordinary aluminium. [R1]
FIG. 01 plots the three series on a logarithmic scale, which is a scale where each step up is a multiple rather than a fixed addition. It is used here because the highest of the three prices is about a hundred times the lowest, and an ordinary scale would flatten the two lower series onto the baseline. The oxide fell from a range of US$890 to US$1,000 a kilogram in 2021 to an estimated US$640 in 2025. The master alloy fell from US$42 a kilogram to US$30. The metal ingot went from US$5,300 to US$5,200, which is close to no change at all. [R1]
The three lines do not move together. If the market were simply short of scandium, all three would rise and fall as one, because each is made from the one before it. They did not move that way between 2021 and 2025. Between 2021 and 2025 the oxide and the master alloy each fell by roughly a third, while the metal barely moved at all. [R1]
That gap has to come from somewhere between the steps. Turning oxide into metal, and turning metal into a master alloy a factory can use, both cost money, and those costs do not fall just because the oxide gets cheaper. So a cheaper oxide does not automatically mean cheaper scandium inside a finished product,
One chart is drawn often and is misleading. Scandium oxide from the middle of the last decade is frequently quoted at several thousand dollars a kilogram, and those older numbers get joined onto the front of the USGS series to show a long collapse in the price. [R1][R2]
The two sets of numbers are not measuring the same sale. The older ones were usually small quantities, sold through a middleman, at a purity nobody states. The USGS series measures 99.99 per cent oxide in 5 to 100 kilogram lots. Joining them together produces a fall that is partly real and partly just a change in what is being priced, and there is no way to tell from the line which part is which.
SAMSO TAKE For scandium, a lower price can be bad for a producer and good for adoption at the same time. Both of those can be true in the same year, because they describe different parts of the same market. The question I keep coming back to is which effect wins, over what period, and for whose cost curve. That is a different question from asking whether the price goes up. |
2.00 — THE ECONOMICS UNDER THE QUESTION
Two different things happen when a price falls, and only one of them builds a market - why the scandium price needs understanding
In the world of commodities, our first instinct is that a falling price means a shrinking business. Some people will read a lower price as a smaller opportunity. In ordinary economics, though, a lower price does two quite separate things, and only one of them is what a scandium investor is actually hoping for.
The first is movement along a demand curve. A demand curve is the relationship between the price of something and the quantity buyers will take at that price. Holding everything else steady, a lower price normally increases the quantity people buy. Existing users buy a bit more of the same thing. [R4]
The second is a shift in the demand curve itself, which means new buyers arrive who were not in the market at any price before. For scandium that requires a manufacturer to qualify an alloy, redesign a component, write a specification and commit a procurement budget. Qualification is the formal testing and approval process that lets a manufacturer use a material in a product it sells, and in aerospace it can run for years. [R4]
THE DISTINCTION IN ONE LINE A lower price sells more scandium to existing buyers. A shift in the demand curve brings in buyers who were not in the market at all. Only the second one takes scandium from a market of tens of tonnes to one of hundreds of tonnes a year. |
Price elasticity is the measure of how strongly the quantity bought responds to a change in price. An elastic market buys a lot more when the price falls. An inelastic one barely changes. No robust public elasticity estimate for scandium was found in the sources reviewed for this work, so any chart that converts an oxide price directly into a tonnage forecast is running on an assumption rather than on measured behaviour. [R5]
Equilibrium, the point where the quantity supplied equals the quantity demanded, is also harder to observe here than in most commodities. Scandium is sold in direct one-to-one deals between a small number of producers and a small number of buyers, often on terms nobody publishes. The price series in FIG. 01 is the best public proxy available, and it is a Chinese ex-works quotation, not a global clearing price. [R1][R4]
3.00 — HOW A NEW MATERIAL GETS TAKEN UP
Frank Bass in 1969, Theodore Wright in 1936, and why neither gives scandium a date
Two pieces of older research are useful here, and both need to be used carefully, because neither was written about scandium.
Frank Bass published a model in 1969 that linked first-time purchases of a new product to two groups of people. The two groups are innovators, who buy because the product exists, and imitators, who buy because other people already have one. The model was built for consumer durables such as televisions and dishwashers, not for aerospace alloys. What carries across is the shape rather than the numbers. Adoption is rarely a straight line. Early technical users prove the material works, others follow, and the rate of growth can rise sharply before the market saturates. [R6]
Theodore Wright measured aircraft manufacturing costs in 1936 and found that unit cost fell in a predictable way as cumulative production rose. This became the learning curve, the idea that making more of something teaches an industry how to make it cheaper. No validated learning rate has been published for scandium production, so there is no percentage to apply. [R7]
The feedback loop the two of them describe is still economically credible for scandium, even without calibration. If supply becomes more dependable, manufacturers can run more trials. Higher production volumes tend to improve yields and lower the cost of converting oxide into usable alloy. A lower delivered alloy cost would widen the range of components in which scandium is affordable. Every step in that chain has to actually happen, and none of them has a published timetable.
WHAT THESE TWO MODELS ARE BEING USED FOR Bass and Wright appear in this work as analogies with named limits, not as forecasting tools. Samso has not fitted either model to scandium data, and no adoption curve or learning rate in this piece should be read as a projection. |
4.00 — WHAT THE SCANDIUM RESEARCH SAYS
Thirty-eight tonnes or 5,500 tonnes, and the single assumption between them
Sinoun Phoung, Eric Williams, Gabrielle Gaustad and Ajay Gupta published a study in the Journal of Cleaner Production in 2023 that took the problem on directly. They gathered public data across solid oxide fuel cells, sporting goods, commercial aviation, conventional vehicles, electric vehicles and beverage cans, then built two scenarios for 2030. [R2]
A solid oxide fuel cell is a device that converts fuel into electricity through a ceramic membrane rather than by burning it. Scandium is used to stabilise zirconia, the zirconium oxide ceramic the membrane is made from, so it holds its structure at the temperatures the cell runs at, which is why fuel cells dominate the smaller of the two scenarios. [R2]
The business-as-usual scenario produced 38 tonnes a year of scandium oxide demand in 2030, of which 36 tonnes came from fuel cells. The second scenario assumed an additional 10 per cent product share in every sector, and produced about 5,500 tonnes, of which roughly 4,600 tonnes came from light-weighting of internal combustion vehicles, which means substituting lighter metals to cut a vehicle's mass and fuel use, and 620 tonnes was electric vehicles. [R2]
WHAT THE AUTHORS SAID ABOUT THEIR OWN 5,500 TONNES The paper states that the assumption of an additional 10 per cent share of scandium-containing products in each sector is “not an assertion that this is a likely value”, and that “there is insufficient information to assert a trend for scandium share in a sector with any certainty”. The same paper calculates that if every proposed scandium project were built by 2030, maximum total supply would be about 1,800 tonnes a year. The 5,500 tonne scenario is therefore not supportable by the known project pipeline, on the authors' own numbers. |
Harald Ulrik Sverdrup and Antoniy Elias Sverdrup came at the same problem in 2024 through a system-dynamics model called WORLD7, which simulates resources, extraction and markets over long periods. They estimated that about 45 tonnes was produced in 2022, that potential extraction was around 1,500 tonnes a year under the conditions of the day, and that production could increase to about 450 tonnes a year with better recovery in processing and better access to the deposits that contain it. Those are model outputs that depend on resource, yield and system assumptions, not measurements of installed capacity. [R3]
Their conclusion about why the market has stayed small is the part that connects to section 2.00. They found that future demand for scandium metal is limited by the high price, by the lack of a properly functioning market and by a lack of production infrastructure, and described the scandium market as showing signs of being disorganised and unstructured. [R3]
SAMSO TAKE Put the two studies side by side and the useful finding is not a number. It is that both teams arrived at the same causal picture from opposite methods. Price and availability decide whether a technically useful material gets designed into products. That is a statement about market formation, and in my opinion it is more investable than any of the tonnage figures either paper produced. |
5.00 — THE COST BRIDGE INTO ALUMINIUM
1.534 kilograms of oxide for every kilogram of scandium, and what that costs a tonne of alloy
Scandium is used in aluminium because it forms a compound called Al₃Sc, which forms very small particles as the alloy cools. Those particles keep the metal's internal crystals small and stop them growing, which raises strength and improves welding behaviour. Frank Czerwinski's 2020 assessment in Materials Science and Technology sets out the metallurgy and compares scandium with cerium as an alloying element. These are general materials findings, and they do not establish that any particular commercial component will pass qualification. [R8]
Published scandium additions to aluminium are commonly reported in the range of about 0.2 to 0.6 per cent by weight, with master alloy suppliers describing practice across a wider band. Reported ranges vary between sources, so the figures used in this work are shown as a band rather than a single number. [R9]
Scandium is bought as an oxide and used as a metal, so the conversion is where the arithmetic starts. Scandium oxide, written Sc₂O₃, is approximately 65.2 per cent scandium by mass. One kilogram of scandium therefore requires 1.534 kilograms of oxide before any conversion loss. This ratio comes from the fixed proportions of the two elements in the compound and does not vary and Rimfire uses the same 1.5338 conversion in its own resource reporting. [R22][R15]
THE SAMSO CALCULATION BEHIND FIG. 04 oxide input cost per tonne of alloy = oxide price × 1.534 × (scandium weight per cent divided by 100) × 1,000 At 0.2 per cent scandium and an oxide price of US$640 a kilogram, that is US$1,964 per tonne of alloy. At the same loading and US$6,270 a kilogram, it is US$19,236. This is the theoretical cost of the oxide and nothing else. It excludes conversion losses, master alloy manufacture, reagent and energy costs, quality assurance, finance, freight, margin and any recycling credit. Real delivered cost will be higher, and how much higher is not something Samso can calculate from public information. |
FIG. 04 shows that the level of the price, not whether it is rising or falling, determines which products scandium can be used in. At US$640 a kilogram and 0.2 per cent loading, the oxide adds under US$2,000 to a tonne of alloy. At US$6,270 a kilogram and 0.6 per cent loading, it adds more than US$57,000. Those two numbers describe two completely different addressable markets, and the difference between them is arithmetic on two prices that both exist today.
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6.00 — TWO PRICES FOR THE SAME ELEMENT
US$640 a kilogram from China, and a stockpile solicitation with a US$40 million ceiling
China placed scandium under export control in April 2025. The Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs issued Announcement No. 18 of 2025, effective 4 April 2025, which lists scandium metal and scandium-containing alloys, scandium oxide and its mixtures, and scandium-containing compounds, each with customs codes. Exporters need a licence, granted case by case. Those controls were still in force as at the USGS assessment in December 2025. [R19][R1]
A further package in October 2025 extended the framework to rare-earth items made outside China using Chinese-origin controlled material or technology, and named scandium metal and scandium targets. That October layer was suspended from 7 November 2025 until 10 November 2026. The suspension pauses the measure rather than repealing it. [R20]
On 16 September 2025 the United States Defense Logistics Agency posted a sole-source solicitation to buy scandium oxide for the National Defense Stockpile, naming Rio Tinto Services Inc. as the only vendor identified as capable of supplying at the required capacity. The stated reason is the Chinese export controls. The structure is a standing arrangement over five years rather than a single purchase, so the government can order in batches as it wants them, with a guaranteed minimum of US$2 million and a maximum of US$40 million. [R18]
The quantity in the solicitation attachment is 6,384 kilograms over the five years. Dividing the US$40 million ceiling by that quantity gives about US$6,270 a kilogram. That figure is Samso arithmetic, not a published price, and it is an upper bound rather than a rate, because a contract ceiling is not the same as the amount that will be spent. FIG. 03 sets it beside the Chinese commercial quotation so the size of the gap can be seen. [R18][R1]
READ THIS BEFORE USING THE NUMBER The right-hand bar in FIG. 03 is the weakest number in this work . It is a ceiling divided by a quantity that appears in a solicitation attachment rather than in the notice body. Samso has not located a primary award record, so this is a procurement intention and not a signed contract. What survives that caution is the direction and the order of magnitude. A Western government moved to buy scandium oxide from a single named supplier, the stated reason in the solicitation is the Chinese export controls, and the money it set aside per kilogram is far above the commercial quotation. The exact multiple should not be quoted as a fact. |
There is not one scandium price. There is a commercial price that has been falling and a strategic price that has been set by a buyer who cannot use the commercial one. A producer serving the second buyer and a producer serving the first are in different businesses, with different volumes and different economics.
SAMSO TAKE My reading is that the two-price picture is the most useful thing to come out of the last twelve months, and it barely appears in the commentary I see on scandium. If an investor is holding a scandium project, the question I would want answered first is which of those two markets the project is built for. A 60 tonne a year operation aimed at defence stockpiles and a 60 tonne a year operation aimed at commercial aluminium are not the same investment, even with the same orebody underneath them. |
7.00 — WHAT IS PRODUCED AND WHAT IS ANNOUNCED
About 80 tons made last year against 289 tonnes of announced capacity
The USGS puts global scandium oxide capacity at over 90 tons a year in 2025 and global production at about 80 tons, with China the leading producer. USGS reports in tons and that wording is kept here rather than silently converted. Material also comes from the Philippines, with processing in Japan. [R1]
Nobody mines scandium on its own. There is no scandium mine anywhere in the world in the way there is an iron ore mine. Every tonne of it is recovered as a by-product, pulled out of the liquids and residues left over from processing something else, mostly nickel and titanium. The amount of scandium available therefore depends on how much nickel and titanium the world is producing, not on how much scandium anyone wants. [R1]
Earlier estimates were smaller. Phoung and colleagues put 2020 global production at 14 to 23 tonnes a year. Sverdrup and Sverdrup estimated about 45 tonnes in 2022. Whether the market really tripled in five years or the estimates simply got better is not something the public data settles, so all three figures are shown in FIG. 02 rather than being blended into one series. [R1][R2][R3]
Rio Tinto is the only one already producing
Rio Tinto opened a scandium oxide plant at its Sorel-Tracy metallurgical complex in Quebec in June 2021, ramping to a capacity of three tonnes a year, extracted from waste streams of its titanium dioxide operation. [R11] On 1 November 2025 Rio Tinto and the Canada Growth Fund announced a transaction to expand that facility's nameplate capacity to nine tonnes a year. Nameplate capacity is the output a plant is designed to produce, which is not the same as what it actually makes or sells. The fund is investing approximately C$25 million through a royalty structure, meaning it is paid a share of future revenue rather than taking shares in the company. [R10]
The step from three tonnes to nine is a tripling of the only operating scandium plant in North America. In FIG. 02 those six additional tonnes a year stand against announced project capacity of 289 tonnes.
Sunrise Energy Metals and the Syerston project
Sunrise Energy Metals, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the code SRL, released feasibility study results for its Syerston project in New South Wales on 3 March 2026, under an announcement titled “Sunrise Advances Plans for Scandium Supply as Chinese Export Controls Tighten for AI, Defence and Chip Markets”. The study describes 60 tonnes a year of scandium oxide at better than 99.9 per cent purity over a 32-year life, a development cost of approximately US$120 million and C1 cash operating costs of US$534 a kilogram, which is the direct cost of making a kilogram at the plant, before interest, tax and the cost of building the plant in the first place. It was completed by GR Engineering Services. [R13]
Those March figures have since been overtaken. On 10 August 2026 Sunrise announced that the United States Office of Strategic Capital had conditionally committed up to US$400 million under a proposed 25-year debt facility, with the money released in stages as the project meets agreed milestones and satisfies the conditions attached to the facility. The company presented a revised capital estimate of approximately A$450 million to A$475 million, which the company describes as a scope change rather than a cost overrun, adding a plant in the United States that converts scandium oxide into scandium metal, a refinery producing a broader range of scandium compounds, and more water and power infrastructure. A second phase could add 120 tonnes a year, taking Syerston to a potential 180 tonnes. [R14]
The United States Department of War release on the same commitment states that the financing gives the department a right of first offer on Sunrise's output, meaning Sunrise has to offer the material to the department before selling it to anyone else. [R21]
NioCorp, Elk Creek and a memorandum of understanding
NioCorp plans approximately 100 tonnes a year of scandium oxide from its Elk Creek project in Nebraska, once project financing and construction are complete. On 4 August 2026 the company and Lockheed Martin signed what the release describes as a non-binding memorandum of understanding covering potential purchases of up to 15 tonnes a year, in oxide form or as aluminium-scandium alloys, over ten years. The release states that there is no assurance a definitive agreement will be reached or as to its eventual terms. [R12]
WHAT A NON-BINDING MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING IS A memorandum of understanding records that two parties have discussed something and intend to keep talking. It is not a contract to buy, it carries no volume commitment and no price, and either side can walk away without penalty. It is evidence that a large defence manufacturer is interested enough to put its name on a document. It is not booked revenue and a lender or a valuer cannot treat it the way they would treat an offtake agreement, which is a binding contract under which a buyer commits to take an agreed volume. |
Adding the announced numbers gives 289 tonnes a year, made up of Rio Tinto at nine, Syerston at up to 180 across both phases and Elk Creek at approximately 100. Of that total, three tonnes exists today and six more are funded. Everything else requires money that has not all been raised and construction that has not started. TABLE 01 sets out every capacity and demand number in this work beside the kind of number it is.
8.00 — THREE SCENARIOS, TESTED AGAINST THE EVIDENCE
Niche, controlled Western expansion, and broad aluminium adoption
These three scenarios are Samso analytical constructions. They are not published forecasts, and the third one is informed by, but not identical to, the additional share scenario in Phoung and colleagues. [R2]
Scenario one, scandium stays a niche
The evidence for it is already set out above. Public market data is thin, present consumption is small, qualification is slow, and announced capacity exceeds several published estimates of the current market by a wide margin. The economics are difficult for any project whose assumed selling price is well above the observable commercial quotation. [R1][R2]
What would confirm it is project delays, weak conversion economics, no binding offtake converting from the current memoranda, and continued use only in high-value niches such as fuel cells and defence. In that outcome the lower price does not create enough volume to matter, and producers that already recover scandium as a by-product, and whose plants are built and paid for, have the advantage over new standalone projects.
Scenario two, controlled Western expansion
Funded commitments have already been made. Rio Tinto and the Canada Growth Fund are funding built capacity. The United States has moved to stockpile the material and has conditionally committed US$400 million to one project. A large defence manufacturer has signed a memorandum with another. Each of those is a step, and none of them is a contract to buy at volume. [R10][R14][R12][R18]
What has to happen is staged capacity rather than simultaneous delivery, binding customer contracts replacing the current memoranda, product qualification, and a price that covers an efficient producer without returning the alloy to small-lot economics. This case does not require demand to stall, and it does not require the car industry to adopt scandium quickly. Samso treats it as the working assumption.
Scenario three, broad aluminium-scandium adoption
The published support is the 5,500 tonne scenario in Phoung and colleagues, driven mostly by vehicle light-weighting. The published caution is in the same paper. The authors lacked public automotive data, used simplifying assumptions, and calculated that the entire proposed project pipeline could deliver about 1,800 tonnes by 2030. Their 5,500 tonne figure demonstrates scale, and it is not a demand forecast. [R2]
What has to happen is a long chain. Oxide prices, master alloy conversion and recycling all have to become economic. Multi-source supply has to be dependable enough that a manufacturer will design around it. Original equipment manufacturers have to qualify the alloys. The value in the finished product has to outweigh redesign and certification costs. This is the largest of the three scenarios, and it depends on the greatest number of steps that have not been demonstrated.
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9.00 — RIMFIRE PACIFIC MINING AS A CASE STUDY
A projected 60 to 90 per cent, a measured 11 per cent, and the fourteen days between them
Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM) holds the Murga scandium deposit in the Fifield district of central New South Wales. Rimfire is included as a case study of how an early-stage project is presented against a commodity story, and of what an investor has to check before accepting that it does.
The resource, and what Inferred means
On 13 April 2026 Rimfire reported a Murga mineral resource estimate of 56.1 million tonnes at 138 parts per million scandium, containing 7,760 tonnes of scandium metal, equivalent to 11,900 tonnes of scandium oxide at the standard 1.5338 conversion. The estimate counts only rock grading at least 100 parts per million, which is called the cut-off grade, and anything weaker is left out. It is reported under the JORC Code 2012. [R15]
READING A RESOURCE STATEMENT The JORC Code is the Australian standard that governs how a company reports what is in the ground. It sorts resources into three confidence levels. Inferred is the lowest, based on limited drilling and sampling. Indicated is better, and Measured is the highest. The whole Murga resource is Inferred. That is a statement about how much rock is estimated to be there and at what grade. It is not an ore reserve, it carries no mine plan, and it says nothing about how much scandium could actually be recovered or at what cost. Parts per million is what it sounds like. At 138 parts per million, a tonne of rock contains about 138 grams of scandium. |
PLATE 01 is the company's own picture of that estimate. The coloured blocks are modelled scandium grade in parts per million, the small green crosses are drill collars, which are the points where a hole was started, and the blue dashed line is the edge of the Murga Intrusive Complex, the body of rock that hosts the deposit. The white ground inside that line is not a statement that there is nothing there. It is ground the block model does not reach, which is the picture behind the word Inferred. [R15]
The metallurgical question, and why iron content is the point
Murga averages approximately 16 per cent iron, which Rimfire describes as low compared with other scandium deposits in the Fifield district. Iron content decides which extraction route is available. High-pressure acid leaching dissolves the ore in acid inside a pressure vessel at high temperature, which works on iron-rich material and is expensive to build and run. Atmospheric leaching does the same job in an open tank or heap at ordinary pressure, which costs far less if the ore releases its scandium at ordinary pressure. Rimfire is testing whether Murga's ore does that. [R15][R16]
What the June test actually reported
On 23 June 2026 Rimfire released a document headed “Strong Encouragement from Initial Murga Scandium Metallurgical Study”. Two samples of about 3.5 kilograms each were tested, one of laterite and one of saprolite. Those are the two layers of weathered rock that form near the surface when the original rock breaks down over a very long time, and they behave differently in a chemical process. Each was a composite, meaning material from several depths blended into one, and both came from a single diamond drillhole numbered FI2679, diamond drilling being the method that cuts a solid cylinder of rock out of the ground so the sample keeps its original structure. [R16]
The samples were bottle roll leached at atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature over 14 days at a laboratory called Simulus. A bottle roll test tumbles crushed rock with acid in a sealed bottle, and it is the cheapest and earliest way to see whether a metal will dissolve out at all. [R16]
PLATE 02 is the company's photograph of the equipment that does it. The bottles are the drums lying on the powered rollers, and the rig in the picture is the whole of the test. That is worth seeing, because a 60 to 90 per cent recovery projection sounds like a plant and this is what stood behind it in June. [R16]
The headline finding was stated conditionally. At the end of the 14-day period, enough scandium had been recovered to indicate that if the same rate of extraction were maintained over a period more typical of industry norms, recoveries of 60 to 90 per cent could potentially be achieved, subject to confirmation by further testing over a longer period. The document carries no recovery-against-time chart and no measured end-of-test recovery figure. [R16]
The August clarification
On 13 August 2026 Rimfire issued a clarification of those results at the request of the ASX and in accordance with Listing Rule 5.7, which lets the exchange require a company to explain or expand on information it has released. Samso has read that release. What follows is taken from it. [R17]
The measured recoveries at the end of the 14-day tests were 11.3 per cent for the saprolite sample and 10.5 per cent for the laterite sample. The 60 to 90 per cent figure was produced by fitting a straight line of best fit to the 14-day data, deliberately excluding the initial rapid extraction, and extending that line over 200 days. The company states that forming a definitive conclusion on ultimate scandium recoveries from 14 days of data is premature and potentially misleading, and it advises shareholders and potential investors in terms not to use the raw average recovery rate, 0.807 per cent a day for saprolite and 0.75 per cent a day for laterite, as the basis for working out recoveries over longer periods. The approach and the projection were reviewed and ratified by the company's metallurgical process consultant and Competent Person, Boyd Willis. [R17]
FIG. 05 shows what that extrapolation does. The solid line is the reported test. The shaded wedge is not measured data. It is the range produced by carrying a straight line from day 14 out to day 200. The company's argument for doing so is that heap leaching of laterite nickel cobalt scandium deposits with a similar mineralogy typically runs for 100 to 250 days or longer, and that published work shows European and West Australian saprolite ores reaching 70 to 80 per cent extraction over extended leaching. It cites two papers, on the Murrin Murrin and Caldag operations. The argument against it is that leach curves usually flatten rather than continue straight, and that two composites from one drillhole are a very small basis for either view. [R17]
THE QUALIFICATION THIS SECTION REQUIRES No published result reviewed here establishes an economic recovery, a final flowsheet, reagent consumption at scale, product purity, capital cost, operating cost, an ore reserve, a production rate or a saleable price for Murga. Atmospheric leaching is not automatically cheap. Acid consumption, residence time, impurity handling, recovery and downstream purification all still have to work at a cost that a 138 parts per million deposit can carry. The 11.3 per cent and 10.5 per cent are measured numbers from two composites out of one drillhole. The 60 to 90 per cent is a projection the company itself has told investors not to derive from the daily rate. Rimfire says further bottle roll tests are underway to check the result. |
SAMSO TAKE The clarification Rimfire issued is more informative than the release it was correcting. The point for an investor is that the next useful evidence from Murga is a longer leach test, not another comparison of contained metal against the neighbouring deposit. What would be good to see is a recovery curve that runs long enough to flatten out, a count of where every gram of scandium ended up, whether the other metals that dissolve alongside it cause a problem, how much acid gets used up getting it out, and whether the product that comes out the end meets what a buyer will actually accept. Rimfire has two bottle roll tests running over 160 to 180 days. That data, when it lands, is the thing to read. |
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10.00 — WHO OWNS MURGA, WHO IS NEXT DOOR, AND WHO IS PAYING
Four kilometres from Syerston, and a partner who can take 50.1 per cent
The metallurgy in section 9.00 is one half of the Rimfire question. The other half is corporate. Three questions matter here. Who owns the deposit, who is beside it, and who is paying for the next round of work. All three moved in 2026.
Rimfire owns Murga today and may hold less than half of it later
Murga is on exploration licence EL8935, which Rimfire describes as wholly owned by the company. That licence forms part of the Fifield Project, and the Fifield Project is subject to an earn-in agreement with Golden Plains Resources Pty Ltd. Under it, Golden Plains can earn a 50.1 per cent interest by completing exploration expenditure and by arranging the funding to build a mine. That funding has to be firm, irrevocable and non-recourse. Non-recourse means it would be repaid only out of what the mine itself earns. The funding also has to rest on a detailed feasibility study, which is the engineering and costing work that says whether a mine is worth building. [R15][R16]
Fifty point one per cent is a majority. If Golden Plains completes the earn-in, Rimfire holds 49.9 per cent of Murga and Golden Plains holds control. The 11,900 tonnes of contained scandium oxide in section 9.00 is a 100 per cent of deposit figure, which is the ordinary way to report a resource. It is not a figure attributable to Rimfire shareholders once the earn-in completes.
Rimfire states the expenditure hurdle as A$3.6 million on its own website and in its 23 June 2026 announcement, and as A$4.5 million over three years in the 13 April 2026 resource announcement. The two documents state different figures, and Samso has not been able to reconcile them. Against the A$3.6 million figure, the 2025 annual report records A$3.375 million already incurred, so the expenditure condition is close to being met. [R15][R16][R23]
THE PART AN INVESTOR SHOULD READ TWICE Rimfire attempted to terminate the Fifield and Avondale earn-in agreements in September 2024, following a change of control at Golden Plains. Golden Plains took the matter to arbitration and Rimfire lost. The 2025 annual report records that the arbitrator ordered the termination notices be set aside. Rimfire did not appeal and was ordered to pay Golden Plains A$825,000 in costs. That is why the earn-in is live today. [R23] The June 2026 quarterly records that Golden Plains has raised queries following an external audit, covering previous payments, accounting processes and management committee processes, with the possibility of further arbitration. The relationship is not settled. [R34] |
The company has had one result go the other way. On 8 July 2026 Rimfire announced that it had secured 60 per cent of the Avondale Project, where Golden Plains ended up with a confirmed 40 per cent interest rather than the 75 per cent it could have earned. Avondale covers the Melrose and Currajong deposits. Murga is not part of Avondale and its earn-in is separate and still running. [R24][R23]
Four kilometres from the project the United States just backed
Murga is about 4 kilometres south of Sunrise Energy Metals' Syerston scandium deposit, roughly 70 kilometres north-west of Parkes in central New South Wales. At the closest point Rimfire reports the northern boundary of the Murga exploration target as 1.2 kilometres from the southern boundary of the Syerston deposit. An exploration target is an estimate of what might be found with more drilling, and it is deliberately not the same thing as a mineral resource. Those are deposit and target distances rather than licence boundaries, and Samso has not verified that the two licences adjoin. [R15][R25]
PLATE 03 is Rimfire's own map of the district, and it is the fastest way to see the company's position. Murga and Syerston appear near the centre, close enough that their labels stack. The tonnage against each deposit is contained scandium oxide, and the figures shown for the deposits Rimfire does not own are the company's rendering of what its neighbours have reported rather than anything Samso has checked. Read the labels and the comparison the market keeps making is right there, 12 thousand tonnes at Murga against 32.3 thousand tonnes at Syerston. [R35]
Syerston is the project that received the conditional United States Office of Strategic Capital commitment described in section 7.00. Sunrise has been chaired by the mining financier Robert Friedland since September 2016, first as co-chairman and as sole chairman since May 2026. His private Singapore company Ivanhoe Capital Holdings Pte Ltd is the largest shareholder on the register, holding 16.59 per cent at the December 2025 notice of meeting. A holding of just under 20 per cent was reported in May 2026. Anyone holding more than 5 per cent of an ASX-listed company has to lodge a notice saying so and update it as the holding moves, which is how those figures become public. [R26][R27][R28]
WHAT THE SUNRISE REGISTER ACTUALLY SHOWS Sunrise Energy Metals is not owned by Robert Friedland and it is not an Ivanhoe Mines company. Ivanhoe Mines does not appear on the Sunrise register at all. Friedland chairs the company and his private vehicle is its largest shareholder at just under a fifth. That is a significant position and it is not control. Samso could not obtain the raw notice behind the May 2026 figure, so that number is taken from the ASX register as republished, not from the filing itself. |
Friedland has spoken about the metal directly. In the 10 August 2026 Sunrise announcement he said that the world has entered an era in which access to critical minerals will shape industrial strength, technology leadership and national security, that scandium is one of the clearest examples, and that the company aims to establish Syerston as a cornerstone of Western scandium supply. That is the chairman of a company seeking finance for a scandium project, so it is a statement of position rather than evidence of demand. [R14]
A new chair, two point three million dollars, and an adviser paid in paper
Rimfire asked for its shares to stop trading on 3 August 2026, which is a trading halt, and was then suspended from quotation on 5 August, which is the exchange stopping trade rather than the company pausing it. Trading resumed on 7 August. On that day it announced the appointment of Bronwyn Barnes as Executive Chair effective 1 September 2026, alongside a placement. Ian McCubbing moved to Non-Executive Director, David Hutton to Technical Director, and Andrew Knox retired from the board. Barnes is in litigation with a former employer. FrontPageAfrica reported on 6 February 2026 that she has filed proceedings in the Supreme Court of Western Australia over her dismissal from Ivanhoe Atlantic, and that the company says the action is without merit and that it will defend it. Neither side's account has been tested and Samso has not seen the court file. [R33][R29]
The placement, which is an issue of new shares to selected investors rather than to all shareholders, is 287,500,000 shares at A$0.008 for A$2.3 million, with one free option attached to every share. An option is a right to buy another share later at a price fixed now, in this case A$0.015, and this one expires in August 2029. A further 20 million options were issued to the brokers involved. No lead manager was appointed. Directors and management committed A$580,000, which includes 73,225,000 shares to Barnes subject to shareholder approval. Counting the placement shares, the free attaching options and the broker options, the raising puts up to 595,000,000 new securities in front of existing holders. Samso could not obtain a confirmed pre-placement share count, so the dilution is not expressed here as a percentage. A reader who wants that number should take the shares on issue from the company's latest Appendix 2A. [R29][R30]
The stated use of funds is scandium work programs, drilling and general working capital. The company's own wording is high impact drilling programs. No split between those three is given, so the amount going to the long-duration leach tests described in section 9.00 is not disclosed. [R30]
Barnes receives fixed remuneration of A$250,000 a year and up to 165 million performance rights, which are rights to receive shares once stated conditions are met. 25 million vest on grant. A further 40 million vest if the share price averages A$0.03 over 15 trading days, weighted by how many shares changed hands on each of those days, and another 40 million at A$0.05. The last 60 million vest on commencement of a fully funded feasibility study for the Fifield Earn In, at any time to 31 August 2029. [R29]
SAMSO TAKE Read that last vesting condition against the earn-in above and it is an interesting piece of structuring. The feasibility study under the Fifield agreement is the Golden Plains obligation, and it is the step that carries Golden Plains to 50.1 per cent. So the largest single tranche of the incoming chair's performance rights vests on the event that takes Rimfire to a minority of its own deposit. In my opinion that is not necessarily wrong, because a funded feasibility study on a deposit this early is worth more to a shareholder than 100 per cent of something that never gets studied. It is simply something an investor should understand before reading the number as an alignment measure. That reading is Samso's inference from two documents, not a statement by the company. |
On 9 July 2026 Rimfire appointed Xcelsior Capital Advisors Limited as a global critical minerals adviser, to engage with potential strategic partners, offtake partners meaning buyers who commit to take product, original equipment manufacturers, governments and financial institutions, and to provide ongoing scandium market research. Xcelsior is a London firm, operating under the licence of another regulated firm rather than holding its own regulatory authorisation, and it describes itself as a provider of senior secured loans, working capital facilities and prepayments to critical minerals producers. [R31]
Rimfire paid the adviser in options rather than cash. Rimfire agreed to issue 32,738,797 unlisted options at an exercise price of A$0.0165, the number set as US$250,000 divided by the 30-day volume weighted average price. Rimfire describes Xcelsior as an investment partner of Wogen, a metals and minerals trading group with more than 50 years in critical minerals markets including scandium. That description of Wogen is Rimfire's. Xcelsior's own published material does not mention scandium. [R31][R32]
The connection an investor will notice, and what it is actually made of
Before Rimfire, Bronwyn Barnes was chief executive, and later president and chief executive, of High Power Exploration, which became Ivanhoe Atlantic. That company is reported to be majority owned by Robert Friedland, the same financier who chairs Sunrise Energy Metals, whose Syerston deposit lies about 4 kilometres north of Murga. She held the role from about late 2022 until early 2026, and was reported to have been recruited by Friedland personally. Those reports are from named news outlets rather than company filings. [R33]
Rimfire's appointment release names three of her current roles, Executive Chair of Indiana Resources, Non-Executive Chair of Finder Energy and chair of Freedom Metals Acquisition Corporation. It does not name the Ivanhoe Atlantic role. There is no general obligation to list every past position in an appointment release, and Samso draws no conclusion from the omission. [R29]
Nothing in the public record connects the Rimfire appointment to Robert Friedland, to Sunrise Energy Metals or to Syerston. Samso found no Friedland shareholding in Rimfire and no corporate link between Xcelsior Capital and any Friedland entity. The only established thread is a past employment relationship at another company, in another commodity and in another country, which ended in early 2026.
SAMSO TAKE Our industry runs on who you know, and nobody in mining should pretend otherwise. A company at Rimfire's stage needs people who can open doors at governments, financiers and original equipment manufacturers, and on paper the new chair and the new adviser both bring that. What I would caution against is treating a connection as a substitute for a result. The Friedland relationship is in the past. The Xcelsior mandate is real but it is paid in options and has produced no announced transaction yet. The 4 kilometres to Syerston is geology, not a commercial arrangement. Hence, in my opinion, the connections are worth knowing about and they are not evidence of anything yet. The thing to watch is still the long-duration leach data and whether a funded feasibility study actually starts. |
11.00 — THE CASE AGAINST EVERYTHING ABOVE
The version of this story where the falling price means exactly what it appears to mean
Every argument in this work depends on the idea that a lower, stable scandium price could create a larger market. The opposing case is set out below.
THE STANDING COUNTERARGUMENT The price is falling because demand is weak, and that is the ordinary reading. Chinese by-product capacity has grown, the buyers have not, and the price is doing what a price does when supply exceeds demand. Nothing in the published data rules this out. Aluminium-scandium alloys have been technically understood since the 1970s and are still not in volume production outside a small set of applications. A material that has had fifty years to be adopted and has not been adopted may simply not be commercially competitive, whatever the price does. The Western capacity being announced is a policy response, not a market response. Governments are funding it in response to the Chinese export controls. No commercial customer has been shown to be waiting for the output. Policy funding can stop, and a project built on a stockpile contract has one customer. If 289 tonnes a year of announced capacity arrives in a market that consumed about 80 tons last year, which is about 73 tonnes, the price falls further and most of the projects do not earn their capital back. That outcome only requires the projects to be built roughly on schedule. |
Public data cannot rule that case out. It differs from the argument above on timing and sequencing rather than on any disputed fact. Both readings use the same USGS series, the same two papers and the same company announcements.
12.00 — THE SAMSO WAY, SEEK THE RESEARCH
Label every number before you use it
The published research settles several points that commentary on scandium usually leaves open. In Phoung and colleagues, the size of a scenario is driven by an assumed product share rather than by a confident demand forecast. Sverdrup and Sverdrup found resources, recoverability, infrastructure and market function to be linked, so they cannot be argued separately. In Bass, adoption accelerates only once early users appear. Wright measured cost falling with accumulated experience, though not on a timetable anyone is entitled to assume. From basic economics, a lower price usually raises the quantity bought, and elasticity decides whether that response is commercially meaningful. [R2][R3][R4][R5][R6][R7]
The method Samso applies to a market like this one is to label every number before using it. TABLE 01 does that for every figure in this work. Seven categories cover almost everything an investor will encounter in scandium. They are an observed fact or government statistic, a peer-reviewed scenario, a model output, a company assumption or company-reported result, a proposed or nameplate capacity, a non-binding memorandum or conditional commercial expression, and a Samso illustrative calculation.
Once those labels are visible, a market whose numbers are hard to compare becomes possible to assess, because the reader can see which numbers are supported and which stand in for work that has not been done yet.
13.00 — SAMSO CONCLUDING COMMENTS
A bigger market and a higher price are not the same trade
The number most scandium commentary tracks is the oxide price. A return to US$3,000 or US$5,000 a kilogram would help a producer's revenue per unit. It would also keep scandium outside the economics of broad aluminium use, which FIG. 04 puts in numbers. A lower, stable price with dependable Western availability might create more value through volume, qualification and learning. That outcome is plausible and it is not proven.
In the bear case, proposed supply arrives before demand and prices compress. Proposed supply arrives before demand and prices compress. In the controlled-expansion case, what is required is disciplined staging and genuine contracts rather than memoranda. The broad-adoption case requires the industry to cross several bridges at once, from metallurgy and conversion through to certification and manufacturing economics.
The two-price picture in section 6.00 is the part of this work that has changed most in the past year, and it is the part Samso will keep watching. It is not clear how long a commercial quotation around US$640 a kilogram and a strategic buyer working from a far higher number can stay that far apart. How they converge, and at what level, decides which of the three scenarios in section 8.00 the market ends up in.
Rimfire's relevance will be decided by evidence from Murga rather than by scandium's theoretical promise. If the atmospheric test work matures into a credible and economic processing route, meaning a proven sequence of steps that takes the rock through to a saleable product, Murga could be positioned for the lower-price, higher-volume market this work explores. Until then Murga is an Inferred resource with an untested metallurgical route, and the June 2026 result has already been the subject of an ASX-prompted clarification.
THE SAMSO QUESTION Are we waiting for a higher scandium price, or are we waiting for a much bigger scandium market? They are not the same thing, and in my opinion an investor who has not decided which one they are betting on has not really made the investment yet. |
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The vocabulary, in plain English
TERMS USED IN THIS PIECE Earn-in agreement. A deal where one party can acquire a share of another party's project by spending money on it, or by arranging its funding, rather than by paying cash up front. The owner keeps full ownership until the conditions are met, then gives up the agreed percentage. Non-recourse financing. A loan repaid only from what the project itself earns. If the project fails, the lender cannot pursue the borrower's other assets. Offtake. An agreement where a buyer commits in advance to take a stated quantity of product. A binding offtake is one of the things a project needs before a lender will fund it. Performance rights. Rights to receive shares once stated conditions are met, such as a share price level or a project milestone. They cost the holder nothing and they dilute other shareholders when they vest. Placement. An issue of new shares to selected investors rather than to all shareholders. It raises money quickly and dilutes anyone not included. Volume weighted average price (VWAP). The average price a share has traded at over a period, weighted by how many shares changed hands at each price. Used so a single small trade cannot set a threshold. Atmospheric leaching. Dissolving metal out of crushed ore in acid in an open tank or heap at ordinary pressure and temperature. Cheaper to build and run than a pressure vessel, and it only works if the ore releases the metal without extra heat and pressure. Bottle roll test. The earliest and cheapest leach test. Crushed ore is tumbled with acid in a sealed bottle for a set number of days to see whether the metal dissolves at all. Ex-works. A price quoted at the seller's gate, before freight, insurance and duty. An ex-works China price is not what a buyer in Europe or the United States pays. High-pressure acid leaching. Dissolving ore in acid inside a sealed pressure vessel at high temperature. It works on iron-rich material that will not leach at ordinary pressure, and it is expensive to build and to operate. Inferred, Indicated, Measured. The three confidence levels in a JORC mineral resource. Inferred is the lowest and rests on limited drilling. Measured is the highest. None of the three is an ore reserve, which is the part of a resource shown to be economically mineable. JORC Code. The Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves. The Australian standard that governs how an ASX-listed company reports what is in the ground. Master alloy. A concentrated alloy, in this case aluminium containing about 2 per cent scandium, that a manufacturer adds to a larger melt to reach the loading it wants. Memorandum of understanding. A record that two parties have discussed a possible arrangement and intend to keep talking. A non-binding one carries no obligation to buy, no volume and no price. Nameplate capacity. The output a plant is designed to produce. It is a design figure, not a record of what was produced or sold. Parts per million (ppm). A grade measure. At 138 parts per million, one tonne of rock contains about 138 grams of the metal. Price elasticity. How strongly the quantity people buy responds to a change in price. Elastic means a small price cut brings a large volume increase. Inelastic means it barely moves. Qualification. The formal testing and approval process a manufacturer runs before it is allowed to use a material in a product it sells. In aerospace it can take years and cost money long before any revenue appears. Scandium oxide (Sc₂O₃). The form scandium is usually sold in. It is about 65.2 per cent scandium by mass, so one kilogram of scandium needs 1.534 kilograms of oxide. Solid oxide fuel cell. A device that turns fuel into electricity through a ceramic membrane instead of by burning it. Scandium is used to stabilise the ceramic. Sole-source solicitation. A government procurement notice stating that only one supplier is considered capable of meeting the requirement. It is an intention to buy, not a signed contract. |
References and sources
Every source below carries an identifier from [R1] to [R35]. The same identifier appears in the body text at the point that source is used, so any number in this work can be traced to the document behind it in one step. Figures labelled FIG. are original Samso illustrations of sourced data, with the data sources named in each caption. Illustrations labelled PLATE are reproduced from the company announcement named in the credit under each one, and the credit states what in the image is the company's work rather than Samso's. Market-sensitive numbers are stated as at their published dates. Where a source is secondary rather than a primary filing, the entry says so.
[R1]United States Geological Survey, “Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Scandium”, February 2026, version 1.1 March 2026. Government statistics, price series and market commentary. pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2026/mcs2026-scandium.pdf
[R2]Phoung, S., Williams, E., Gaustad, G. and Gupta, A. (2023), “Exploring global supply and demand of scandium oxide in 2030”, Journal of Cleaner Production 401, 136673. Peer-reviewed scenario study. doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136673
[R3]Sverdrup, H.U. and Sverdrup, A.E. (2024), “On the Supply Dynamics of Scandium, Global Resources, Production, Oxide and Metal Price, a Prospective Modelling Study Using WORLD7”, Biophysical Economics and Sustainability 9, 2. Peer-reviewed system-dynamics model. doi.org/10.1007/s41247-024-00118-y
[R4]OpenStax, Principles of Economics 3e, section 3.1, “Demand, Supply, and Equilibrium in Markets for Goods and Services”. General economics reference. openstax.org/books/principles-economics-3e/pages/3-1-demand-supply-and-equilibrium-in-markets-for-goods-and-services
[R5]OpenStax, Principles of Economics 3e, section 5.3, “Elasticity and Pricing”. General economics reference. openstax.org/books/principles-economics-3e/pages/5-3-elasticity-and-pricing
[R6]Bass, F.M. (1969), “A New Product Growth for Model Consumer Durables”, Management Science 15(5), 215 to 227. Adoption model, used here as an analogy. doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.15.5.215
[R7]Wright, T.P. (1936), “Factors Affecting the Cost of Airplanes”, Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences 3(4), 122 to 128. Origin of the learning curve. doi.org/10.2514/8.155
[R8]Czerwinski, F. (2020), “Critical Assessment 36: Assessing differences between the use of cerium and scandium in aluminium alloying”, Materials Science and Technology 36(3), 255 to 263. Metallurgical review, single author. doi.org/10.1080/02670836.2019.1702775
[R9]Ghosh, S., Dhiman, S., Gupta, A. and Jain, S. (2023), Environments 10(1), 8. Source for the reported 0.2 to 0.6 weight per cent scandium loading band. doi.org/10.3390/environments10010008
[R10]Rio Tinto, “Rio Tinto and Canada Growth Fund announce transaction to advance Canadian production of scandium”, 1 November 2025. Company announcement, nameplate capacity expansion to nine tonnes a year. www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2025/rio-tinto-and-canada-growth-fund-announce-transaction-to-advance-canadian-production-of-scandium
[R11]Rio Tinto, “Rio Tinto opens new scandium plant in Canada”, 17 June 2021. Company announcement, three tonnes a year capacity at Sorel-Tracy. www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2021/Rio-Tinto-opens-new-scandium-plant-in-Canada
[R12]NioCorp Developments, “Lockheed Martin and NioCorp Sign MOU”, 4 August 2026. Company announcement, expressly non-binding. niocorp.com/lockheed-martin-and-niocorp-sign-mou/
[R13]Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX: SRL), “Sunrise Advances Plans for Scandium Supply as Chinese Export Controls Tighten for AI, Defence and Chip Markets”, 3 March 2026. Syerston feasibility study results. api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/srl/3b0e39fb-094.pdf
[R14]Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX: SRL), Office of Strategic Capital conditional commitment and intention to pursue a United States listing, 10 August 2026. Company announcement, revised capital estimate and phase two capacity. api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/srl/bcd06aae-771.pdf
[R15]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Murga Scandium MRE increases by 300%”, 13 April 2026. Company mineral resource estimate, JORC 2012. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/485e4840-ca67-48ff-a8cb-ac3e7153d647/Murga-Scandium-MRE-increases-by-300.pdf
[R16]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Strong Encouragement from Initial Murga Scandium Metallurgical Study”, 23 June 2026. Company-reported test work. The company website indexes the same document as “Early Encouragement from Murga Scandium Metallurgy”. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/4950408f-f9a3-4982-ba39-f47de0c79723/Platform/ListPage/Early-Encouragement-from-Murga-Scandium-Metallurgy.pdf
[R17]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Clarification to ASX Announcement released on 23 June 2026”, 13 August 2026. Issued at the request of the ASX under Listing Rule 5.7. Source for the 11.3 per cent and 10.5 per cent measured recoveries, the daily rates, the linear best-fit method excluding the initial rapid extraction, the 200-day extrapolation, the company’s own disclaimer, the Simulus bottle roll conditions and the drillhole FI2679 composites. www.rimfire.com.au/
[R18]United States Defense Logistics Agency, sole-source solicitation SP8000-25-R-0021, “Scandium Oxide Sole Source to Rio Tinto Services”, posted 16 September 2025. Procurement notice, not an executed contract. sam.gov/opp/6a9f3a2cef0f4627877199ee00f04312/view
[R19]Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China, Announcement No. 18 of 2025, export control on certain medium and heavy rare earth related items, effective 4 April 2025. Section VI lists scandium metal, alloys, oxide and compounds. english.mofcom.gov.cn/Policies/AnnouncementsOrders/art/2025/art_0dd87cbee7b045bf93fabe6ab2faceee.html
[R20]Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University, English translation of Ministry of Commerce Announcement No. 61 of 2025, issued 9 October 2025. Translation of the Chinese original. cset.georgetown.edu/publication/mofcom-notice-2025-61/
[R21]United States Department of War, “Office of Strategic Capital Signs $400 Million Conditional Loan Commitment With Sunrise Energy Metals Limited to Expand Scandium Mining Operations”, 7 August 2026. Government announcement. www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4566598/office-of-strategic-capital-signs-400-million-conditional-loan-commitment-with/
[R22]James Cook University Advanced Analytical Centre, element to stoichiometric oxide conversion factors. Source for the 1.5338 scandium to scandium oxide factor. www.jcu.edu.au/advanced-analytical-centre/resources/element-to-stoichiometric-oxide-conversion-factors
[R23]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), Annual Report 2025. Source for the arbitration outcome on the Golden Plains earn-in agreements, the A$825,000 costs order and the A$3.375 million of earn-in expenditure incurred. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/bd405257-1a0f-450a-940e-d97cdf1eb2a2/2025-Annual-Report-to-Shareholders.pdf
[R24]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Rimfire secures 60% of Avondale Project”, 8 July 2026. Golden Plains vested at 40 per cent on Avondale, which is a separate agreement from the Fifield earn-in over Murga. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/cf75aa6b-5296-4a63-901d-8c1e781f295a/Platform/ListPage/Rimfire-secures-60-of-Avondale-Project.pdf
[R25]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Infill Scandium Drilling to commence at Murga”, 31 October 2025. Source for the 4 kilometre and 1.2 kilometre distances to the Syerston deposit. rimfire.com.au/pdf/7a773d99-0664-455d-8784-137ccd2323f6/Infill-Scandium-Drilling-to-commence-at-Murga.pdf
[R26]Clean TeQ Holdings, later renamed Sunrise Energy Metals, ASX announcement, 8 September 2016. Robert Friedland appointed non-executive director and co-chairman. announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20160908/pdf/43b180v6cqz643.pdf
[R27]Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX: SRL), notice of meeting, 23 December 2025. Names Ivanhoe Capital Holdings Pte Ltd as an entity associated with Robert Friedland and gives its holding as 16.59 per cent at that date. cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2924-03041453-3A684621
[R28]Market Index, Sunrise Energy Metals substantial shareholders, republishing ASX register data. SECONDARY SOURCE for the just under 20 per cent figure at the May 2026 notice. The underlying form was not obtained. See flag F8. www.marketindex.com.au/asx/srl
[R29]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Executive Chair Appointment and $2.3M Capital Raising”, 7 August 2026. Source for the board changes, the Barnes biography as given by the company, remuneration and performance rights. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/ef88848a-4543-4920-ad58-27785773e9c6/Platform/ListPage/Executive-Chair-Appointment-and-23M-Capital-Raising.pdf
[R30]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), Appendix 3B, proposed issue of securities, 7 August 2026. Source for the placement terms, the absence of a lead manager, the director participation and the stated use of funds. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/599a3d01-5c37-40e0-b508-4c775dabf7a1/Platform/ListPage/Proposed-issue-of-securities-RIM.pdf
[R31]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Rimfire Appoints Global Critical Minerals Advisor”, 9 July 2026, and the accompanying Appendix 3B of the same date. Source for the Xcelsior mandate and the option consideration. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/1fcc8aa5-156b-4c55-bcef-36f70f2f793e/Platform/ListPage/Rimfire-Appoints-Global-Critical-Minerals-Advisor.pdf
[R32]Argus Media, interview with Liam Farley of Xcelsior Capital, 19 December 2024, and the firm's own published material. Source for how Xcelsior describes its business and for the absence of any published scandium track record. www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2639822-q-a-xcelsior-aims-to-derisk-minor-metals-investment
[R33]Gerald C. Koinyeneh, “Liberia: Ex-Ivanhoe Atlantic CEO Bronwyn Barnes Sues Company Over Alleged Unfair Sacking”, FrontPageAfrica, 6 February 2026, syndicated by allAfrica. With the same masthead’s report of 29 January 2026. SECONDARY SOURCE for Bronwyn Barnes's role at High Power Exploration and Ivanhoe Atlantic, the dates of that role, the report that she was recruited by Robert Friedland personally, and the Supreme Court of Western Australia proceedings. Not verified against company filings or a court file. The claims of both parties are untested. See flag F9. allafrica.com/stories/202602060251.html
[R34]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), June 2026 Quarterly Activities and Cashflow Report. Source for the Golden Plains queries following an external audit and the possibility of further arbitration. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/5249870d-49b4-4490-a918-601ae1357208/Platform/ListPage/June-2026-Quarterly-Activities-and-Cashflow-Report.pdf
[R35]Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM), “Seismic survey to strengthen geological understanding of Fifield District”, 11 June 2026, listed on the company’s announcements page as Seismic Survey Underway at Fifield. Source for PLATE 03, the district map at Figure 2 of that release. The contained scandium oxide figures it shows for deposits Rimfire does not own are the company’s rendering of third-party reporting and are carried here as reported rather than verified. www.rimfire.com.au/pdf/a7ae5554-85af-40a0-b4d8-35c8ec50d24e/Platform/ListPage/Seismic-Survey-Underway-at-Fifield.pdf
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