Arafura Rare Earths’ final investment decision for Nolans marks a significant occasion – one of Australia’s most anticipated rare earths developments has gone from being a sought-after strategic promise to a deliverable asset.
After more than two decades of development, Arafura’s board has approved construction of the Northern Territory project, positioning Nolans to become Australia’s first fully integrated ore-to-oxide rare earths operation.
The move follows a number of key recent developments under the company’s comprehensive, multi-year financing and offtake strategy, which has drawn binding commitments from sovereign-backed institutions across four nations and resulted in the company securing binding offtake with leading
manufacturers across the globe.
It is now targeting formal construction activities from September 2026, with the project expected to support more than 600 construction jobs and about 350 ongoing operational roles.
Arafura managing director Darryl Cuzzubbo said the decision (FID) reflects the long arc of work required to bring a strategically significant critical minerals project to this point.
“The patience required to secure this foundation has been repaid in the resilience of what we now have,” Cuzzubbo said.
“The achievement of FID reflects years of disciplined execution and partnership building.”
The decision caps a rapid run of funding, offtake and government support announcements that have turned Nolans into a live test case for Australia’s ambitions in rare earths.
While the country has long been positioned as a critical minerals powerhouse, the challenge has been moving beyond resource potential into processing, customer integration and bankable downstream supply chains.
Nolans’ significance moves beyond being a mining project, but also because Arafura’s single-site ore-to-oxide processing model is designed to retain more of the rare earth value chain within Australia, with Arafura saying that up to 95 per cent of that chain could be captured domestically.
The Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) described Nolans as a nationally significant development and one of the limited number of projects globally capable of producing neodymium-praseodymium oxide outside China.
“Arafura’s Nolans Project – including a mine, processing plant and related infrastructure to be built 135km north of Alice Springs – is a nationally significant development, and one of a limited number globally capable of producing NdPr oxide outside China,” MCA chief executive officer (CEO) Tania Constable said.
“The project’s cornerstone asset is the Nolans Bore rare earths-phosphate-uranium-thorium deposit, one of the largest and most intensively explored deposits of its kind in the world.”
Rare earths such as NdPr, dysprosium, and terbium are essential to permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, advanced manufacturing and defence technologies.
But the market remains highly concentrated, particularly at the processing stage, making projects such as Nolans strategically attractive to governments seeking alternatives to dominant Chinese supply chains.
That strategic weight is visible in Arafura’s capital stack. The company recently secured a $200 million commitment from the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation, lifting total binding equity-related commitments and previously raised equity for Nolans to $911 million.
This sits alongside broader support involving Export Finance Australia, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and Germany’s KfW, acting on behalf of the German Raw Materials Fund.
The project is also expected to receive support through the Federal Government’s Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve, with Export Finance Australia issuing a non-binding letter of support for potential backing of up to 500 tonnes per annum of NdPr from Nolans.
Commercially, Arafura has been moving in parallel, and earlier this month, the company signed a binding term sheet with Traxys North America for 500 tonnes per annum (tpa) of NdPr oxide and 7.5tpa of dysprosium-terbium oxide over five years.
That followed the earlier Traxys Europe agreement and adds to existing customer relationships with Hyundai, Kia and Siemens Gamesa.
Cuzzubbo said these relationships point to a broader alignment between government and industry.
“The offtake relationships we have established with Hyundai, Kia, Siemens Gamesa, Traxys and the various types of economic support provided by the Australian Government are not transactional arrangements,” he said.
“They reflect a shared recognition that the diversification of global rare earth supply chains is an imperative, not merely an opportunity.”
The result is that Nolans now has 93 per cent of its targeted binding offtake volume represented through binding arrangements and government support mechanisms.
For a rare earths project trying to reach construction in a volatile pricing environment, that level of contracted support is central to de-risking.
However, the FID doesn’t necessarily remove the execution challenge; Arafura must now move through construction, commissioning, and ramp-up while managing cost pressures, technical delivery, and the expectations that come with government-backed strategic status.
If delivered as planned, Nolans could contribute $25.2 billion to the Northern Territory economy over its 38-year mine life and provide a rare example of Australia moving further down the critical minerals value chain.
As it stands, Arafura’s FID turns a long-running national ambition into a construction-stage reality. The next step is no longer whether Nolans can attract strategic support, but whether it can convert that support into a durable rare-earths supply chain outside China.
