Octava Minerals Achieves Strong REE Recoveries in Byro Project Bioleaching Tests

Octava Minerals (ASX:OCT) is ready to advance to the next stage of bioleaching test work after receiving positive extraction results from its Byro rare earth element (REE) and critical minerals project in Western Australia.

The REE, lithium, and vanadium recoveries came from Octava’s recent diamond drilling at Byro, and follow promising results from Stage 1 of a CSIRO bioleaching test program to determine potential for extractiing metals from Byro samples.

The program used Byro material to enrich and adapt a variety of iron- and sulphur-oxidising bioleaching microorganisms, commonly used in industry for the cost-effective extraction of valuable metals.

Excellent Extraction Rates

Led by European biomining experts BiotaTec, the latest testing achieved extraction rates of between 68% and 75% for neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium—three key REEs used in rare earth magnet production.

The tests also achieved approximately 40% battery metal returns from lithium, vanadium and terbium.

Those results have encouraged Octava to examine the next steps forward for developing the Byro project.

Next Stage Planning

BiotaTec has suggested taking a bioheap-leaching approach in the next stage to process the Byro ore in an industrial setting.

It would apply a microbial-generated biolixiviant to the crushed and agglomerated heaped material that would leach and then channel a liquid solution of metals as carbonates isolated with a press filter.

To reach that level would require the identification of suitable microorganism strains optimised for the ore, as well as upscaling the process to a pilot-sized industrial operation.

Byro Project Milestone

Managing director Bevan Wakelam called the test results a “milestone for the Byro project” that, “with the recent improvement in REE prices, […] could not have come at a better time.”

Mr Wakelam said the BiotaTec tests used material typically seen in the wide-spaced historic diamond drilling within the Byro sub-basin over a strike length of approximately 30 kilometres.

“That’s why we believe the Byro project has the potential to be a key large-scale, low-cost supplier of critical minerals in Australia.”

The Byro project consists of two exploration licences covering 555 sq km on the Byro Plains of WA’s Gascoyne Region southeast of Carnarvon.