Plan for Mallee rare earths mine has been years in the making

This street was famously home to the richest mining companies on the planet at one point in history when a gold rush put an infant Victoria, and Australia along with it, on the map.

The remarkable Old Treasury Building at the end of Collins Street is one visual reminder of those heady times when mining was king.

Neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium don't have the same rock star appeal as gold. They are harder to say, for one.

The experts from VHM Ltd, an ASX-listed mining company headquartered here on the 11^th floor of an office tower in Collins Street, admit few people have ever heard of these "rare earths".

These hard-to-find minerals have been identified by the Australian and United States governments as "critical" to our electrified future.

Indeed, VHM's Goschen mine won major project status from the Federal government in 2022 for "its potential to contribute the national critical minerals strategy (and objectives to become a critical minerals producer to alleviate global reliance on China)".

The company's balance sheet was boosted in December with $4.5 million received from the ATO as a tax offset for its research and development work on its Goschen project.

These dark sands create permanent magnets which produce their own magnetism without the aid of electricity.

Permanent magnets are key to electric vehicles and even wind turbines.

For the best part of a decade, VHM has been working to find these rare earths in enough quantity to warrant digging them out of the ground and eventually make a buck for their shareholders.

Investors like WA mining billionaire Chris Ellison who is VHM's largest shareholder.

A resource called historic drilling logs, a register of past exploration drilling discoveries, led VHM Ltd to the cropping broadacres of Victoria's Mallee.

These drilling logs provided the locality name Goschen to their find, just south of Swan Hill, and gave VHM's flagship project its name but until you visit there, you quickly realise the focus is the Cannie Ridge.

By reputation this is some of the most fertile cropping country in the southern Mallee and there's no surprise multi-generation farmers there are now fighting to protect it.

Other than the geological formation of the Cannie Ridge itself, the land appears unremarkable on the surface.

The weather still mostly dictates the worth of the grain harvest.

Yet only about 20 to 30 metres under the surface, is an ore body rich in these rare earths which VHM estimates to be more 836 million tonnes.

Shareholders are told it is "one of the world's largest, highest-grade rare earths, zircon and rutile deposits".

VHM has already bought four pieces of land totalling 1534 hectares (3791 acres) from willing sellers to locate its first mine and says its "critical mineral province" now stretches over more than 55km of this country.

Although this Collins Street HQ is about 300km as the Mallee eagle flies from the Cannie Ridge, it is the experienced miners here who know the land as well as the farmers themselves. From a scientific point of view, even better.

Once the rare earths were found, and then extensive drilling confirmed the size of the deposit, they had to figure out how to extract it.

There is a mining play book for this, others have done it, and others are poised to do it - similar mineral sands mines at Horsham and Donald mines are already ready to go.

Putting the moving parts together took time, a lot of time.

These mines are water-hungry and the Mallee is famously dry, undeterred they plan to pipe water around 40km from Kangaroo Lake, build their own power station, truck the concentrate to the closest rail point at Ultima and then ship it to China for processing.

When the logistics were figured out, then came the focus on government authorisation to proceed.

This took many more years.

"It's a long game, mining," VHM's executive general manager (strategy and corporate) Carly O'Regan said.

VHM produced a 4000-page Environment Effects Statement for non-experts to decipher but bureaucrats to approve, it was a massive undertaking and key milestone along their journey to stick the first shovel in the ground.

VHM says it wants to begin construction of the mine later this year with a public deadline of starting operations in 2025.

Public submissions officially closed a few weeks ago.

The next steps are to test that document before an independent panel hearing.

A directions hearing on how the panel will begin the EES hearings will be held online on February 13.

For there the public hearing has already been scheduled to begin on March 25 and possibly take three weeks given the expected number of submissions.

The panel is to provide its report to the government within 40 days after those hearings.

Then it is a waiting game with no timeline on the government's final decision.

VHM still then has to apply for more relevant permits and a mining licence (already under way), so the company can make its final investment decision.

It also needs to nail down its "offtake agreement" or processing arrangement for its ore concentrate in China.

After all this work, over all these years, it will finally be up to VHM's board whether to say go or not.

The experts at VHM are confident its EES is sound and the project will be approved.

While they are busy preparing for the hearings, they have also turned their minds to what might come after.

VHM executive general manager (operations readiness) Bernie Hyde and VHM environmental scientist Kurtis Noyce say even more work on community engagement will be necessary.

Cannie Ridge farmers face 20-25 years of round-the-clock mining to open cut five million tonnes of mineral sands every year.

Local opposition to the mine project has grown since the EES was made public with the formation of the Mine Free Mallee Farms group.

Mr Hyde agreed there was a fear of the unknown among "our neighbours".

"We have to build trust," he said.

Farmers say productive agricultural land should be better protected for future generations.

They also fear road closures, dust, lights and traffic will impact their rural lifestyle.

These farmers also worry that their own farms will soon be swallowed up by the mine project as well.

Mr Hyde said the work to help educate and answer questions on the mine plans won't end after the EES panel hearing.

"We've been in the area for six years and we want to be there for many more."