Axel REE (ASX: AXL) used its presentation at the Emerging Wealth Winners conference to outline a development pathway centred on field recovery trials at the Caladão project in Brazil’s Lithium Valley, where it is advancing an in-situ recovery (ISR) strategy for ionic clay-hosted rare earths.
Caladão now hosts a mineral resource estimate of 572 million tonnes at 1,506 parts per million total rare earth oxide (TREO) and a gallium resource of 439Mt at 38ppm, with contained totals of 861,000t TREO and 16,700t gallium metal.
Axel REE is framing ISR as the core development route for Caladão, arguing the method offers a lower-capital, lower-impact, and faster path than conventional mining while also supporting modular growth through multiple wellfields.
The presentation also placed increasing emphasis on gallium and scandium as parallel upside opportunities alongside the core rare earth plan, with management presenting Caladão as a broader multi-commodity critical minerals system.
ISR Pathway Takes Centre Stage
ISR is already the dominant extraction method for ionic clay rare earth deposits, with commercial use in southern China since the late 1990s and industry-wide adoption of modern techniques since about 2010.
About 70% of global ionic clay rare earth production now comes via ISR and described that operating history as evidence of a proven and lower-risk development pathway for Caladão.
Its preferred model uses magnesium sulphate lixiviant to recover rare earths directly from ionic clays without conventional mining or crushing, with solutions then processed into mixed rare earth carbonate.
Axel REE argued the main advantages of the approach are lower capital intensity, lower operating costs, a smaller environmental footprint, and the ability to scale through modular wellfield expansion rather than fixed large-scale infrastructure.
Woolrich Leads the Trial Mining Push
The company identified Woolrich as the first targeted wellfield for field trials and said the deposit has a 2,000-hectare mineralised footprint with 12 wellfields already identified.
Woolrich has returned up to 464ppm soluble TREO through ISR leach testing, as well as a magnet-rich rare earth assemblage of about 42% magnet rare earth oxides including neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium.
Axel believes those metallurgical results validate the ISR development concept at Caladão and demonstrate potential for scalable wellfield development as the project moves toward trial mining later in 2026.
The company’s conceptual pod model starts with a pilot benchmark of 100 tonnes to 300 tonnes of rare earth oxide per year, then scales through ramp-up and steady-state pods, although it notes this remains a benchmark model rather than a production forecast.
Paraíso and District Scale Add Expansion Depth
Beyond Woolrich, Axel REE believes Paraíso and Tiger Creek provide significant expansion inventory, with Paraíso alone hosting 1,000 hectares and nine identified wellfields.
The company highlighted Paraíso grade-thickness values of up to 13,705 gram-metres total rare earth oxide with soluble TREO grades and grade-thickness results exceeding typical ionic clay ISR commercial benchmarks.
Examples from Paraíso included 22.15m at 619ppm soluble TREO in one hole, and 19.32m at 662ppm in another, both with magnet-rich rare earth assemblages.
29 ISR wellfields have now been identified across Caladão, despite only about 20% of the project having been drilled, supporting a district-scale growth profile as the project moves through mine planning, permitting, and feasibility work.
Gallium Optionality Broadens the Story
The presentation also sharpened the company’s messaging around gallium, which Axel REE described as a globally critical technology metal and a future parallel development path alongside the rare earth ISR project.
Caladão hosts Brazil’s only defined primary gallium resource and one of the larger such resources globally, creating optionality for downstream strategy and partnership discussions.
The company cited an ANSTO-led metallurgical program as confirming a pathway to recover gallium and co-recover scandium from the Caladão clay system, with recoveries improving through ongoing optimisation.
Axel REE said that combination positions Caladão as a potential future supplier of responsibly produced gallium and magnet rare earths into Western critical minerals supply chains as it accelerates toward field recovery trials.
