Years of planning, partnerships and persistence have transformed Nolans from a Northern Territory deposit into one of Australia’s most strategically significant critical minerals projects.
When Arafura Rare Earths made a final investment decision (FID) on the Nolans project in May, it marked a major milestone for one of Australia’s most significant critical minerals developments.
Located 135 kilometres north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Nolans is expected to become Australia’s first fully integrated ore-to-oxide rare earths operation, supplying the materials needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines, advanced manufacturing and defence technologies.
But reaching this point required far more than a world-class resource.
Over the past 12 months, the project has attracted backing from governments, export credit agencies, strategic investors and international customers, transforming what was once a long-running development project into one of the world’s most closely watched rare earths investments.
“Darryl and the Arafura team deserve enormous congratulations for getting the nationally important Nolans Project achieved to this stage,” Hancock Prospecting executive chair Gina Rinehart told Australian Mining.
“Large-scale mining projects are complex, capital intensive and take years of persistence, technical work and resilience against large and overlapping bureaucracy and approval systems to progress from initial exploration, to construction, jobs and finally revenue.”
The achievement highlights a much larger challenge facing rare earth developers worldwide.
While demand for critical minerals continues to grow, relatively few projects progress beyond studies and approvals to secure the funding, customers and partnerships required for construction.
But, Nolans has done exactly that.
Arafura managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) Darryl Cuzzubbo told Australian Mining the reason behind that lies in the project’s strategy to become an alternative source of rare earths.
“What we’re building is an ore-to-oxide project, which is quite different to just about every other rare earths project,” Cuzzubbo said.
“We’re deliberately going all the way to an oxide so that we can be an alternative to China, so you can bypass China’s supply chain and provide a radiation-free product.”
That strategy has shaped almost every aspect of the project’s development.
Because Nolans is set up to produce rare earth oxide on site, rather than shipping concentrate to China for further processing, Arafura has been able to lock in customers across the United States, South Korea and Europe. This end-to-end approach has underpinned the project’s commercial development and international partnerships.
“It all comes from the support from countries and companies that want to diversify rare earth supply away from China,” Cuzzubbo said.
As governments and industries seek greater control over critical mineral supply, rare earths have moved from a specialised mining market to the centre of global economic and strategic discussions.
Neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), Nolans’ primary product, is a critical component in permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence applications. As governments work to secure reliable supplies of these materials, projects capable of supplying markets outside China’s supply chain have become increasingly valuable.
Among the earliest believers in Nolans was Hancock Prospecting. Cuzzubbo acknowledged the role Hancock played in helping the project reach FID, noting that the company backed Arafura before others were willing to do so.
“Hancock came in early taking a risk on Arafura before all other large investment institutions came in,” he said.
Hancock’s support, in the end, delivered more than funding.
“Hancock has absolutely been one of our enabling success factors,” Cuzzubbo said.
“They saw the investment case and the need to have a non-China source of rare earths before the rest of the world did.
“Some people saw that, but they didn’t want to act on it, whereas Hancock saw the need and they had the conviction to back that need with hard dollars.”
That early backing helped establish credibility for the project as Arafura worked to secure debt financing, strategic investors and government support.
“When Hancock invests, other institutional investors take notice,” Cuzzubbo said.
The support that followed after was extensive. Over the past 18 months, Arafura has assembled one of the most significant funding packages seen in the Australian critical minerals sector. The company secured a $200 million convertible note commitment from the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation, alongside support from Export Finance Australia and international export credit agencies.
In April, Germany’s state-owned development bank KfW committed $84 million through the German Raw Materials Fund, while Export Finance Australia invested a further $146 million.
The commitments lifted Arafura’s total equity funding and commitments to more than $900 million.
The project has also secured offtake agreements across key international markets, strengthening Nolans’ position as a future supplier of rare earth materials outside China’s supply chain.
Earlier this year, the Australian Government selected Nolans as one of the first projects to participate in its Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve initiative, highlighting the project’s growing strategic importance.
The challenge, however, was never about simply proving the value of rare earths. It was convincing investors that an alternative supply chain was worth building.
Rare earths projects that produce concentrate require significantly less capital than an integrated ore-to-oxide operation. By choosing to build downstream processing capability, Arafura took on a more complex and expensive development pathway.
“The reason other rare earths projects don’t go to oxide is because you don’t need anywhere near the same amount of capital,” Cuzzubbo said.
“By going to oxide, we needed a lot more capital. Therefore, it took us a lot more time to line up the offtakes, then the debt and then ultimately the investors.”
Once operational, the project will provide feedstock for metallisation, alloy production and magnet manufacturing facilities.
“Getting to oxide is the most important piece, so that you can provide feedstock to metallisation companies and magnet manufacturing companies as they build out their capacity outside of China,” Cuzzubbo said.
With FID secured, attention is now turning to construction and delivery. Success begins with safely bringing phase one into production and delivering approximately 4400 tonnes of NdPr annually.
Beyond that, the project is already looking at expansion opportunities.
Phase two could eventually lift production to around 10,000 tonnes per annum, while Arafura is also exploring opportunities to process feedstock from other Australian rare earth projects and increase its production of heavy rare earths.
“Phase two will be bigger than phase one,” Cuzzubbo said.
This feature appeared in the July 2026 issue of Australian Mining magazine.
