Despite being one of the world’s smallest metal markets, scandium has been one of the biggest commodity stories of 2026.

Previously mainly used in aluminium alloys, growing demand for scandium in solid oxide fuel cells, defence applications, telecommunications and data centres has put fresh focus on supply.

In early July, activist investor Hunterbrook Capital released a report which raised doubts about US-listed fuel cell company Bloom Energy’s growth plans due to a lack of scandium supply.

The report also highlighted the reliance of the scandium supply chain on China.

The heat remained on Bloom, with short-seller Crossroads Capital releasing a report expressing similar concerns only days later.

While the US Geological Survey estimates the current scandium market at 40-70 tonnes, some commentators suggest that number is underestimated, with demand widely expected to grow.

And the US appears to be taking notice, with the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital this month announcing its biggest-ever conditional loan commitment for a mining project.

Robert Friedland-backed Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX:SRL) will receive US$400 million from the US government to fund development of its proposed 60t per annum Syerston project in New South Wales.

The company first looked at developing the project a decade ago but the demand wasn’t there. That has since changed, with Sunrise already studying an expansion to 180tpa.

It projects scandium demand to reach 300tpa by 2030 and as much as 600tpa by 2035.

“The world has entered an era in which access to critical minerals will shape industrial strength, technology leadership and national security,” Friedland said.

“Scandium is one of the clearest examples, supporting the technologies, industries and defence capabilities that will shape the coming decades.”

Sunrise is targeting a final investment decision by the end of the year and first production in 2028.

Scandium is taking on growing importance at Mount Ridley Mines’ Grass Patch project in Western Australia.

Grass Patch has a rare earths resource of 122.54Mt at 889ppm TREO for 108,954t of contained TREO with a 41% HREO ratio including 46,000t of HREO and a scandium resource of 367.98Mt at 57.3ppm scandium or 87.9ppm scandium oxide, for 18,855t of scandium or 28,920t of scandium oxide.

It makes the project the second-largest scandium resource in the West behind Syerston.

Mount Ridley managing director Allister Caird said scandium was often produced as a by-product of titanium residues and there wasn’t enough primary production.

“We need well-defined JORC-compliant resources that can be mined and can be brought online quickly, and that’s what we have, along with our heavy rare earths and our gallium,” he said.

Location of Mount Ridley's Grass Patch project. Pic: supplied

The initial phase of the company’s scandium assaying program is complete, with many of the results exceeding the resource grade and identifying two new open scandium trends, highlighting the potential for further growth in the scandium resource.

“We’re expecting that resource to grow quite considerably on the back of this work,” Caird said, adding that an upgrade would make it more visible to the market.

“At that point, a project that already looks quite compelling to a potential offtaker becomes hard to ignore, and that’s certainly the strategy that we’re leaning into.”

Chris Larder was recently appointed chief technology officer after the company received $104,000 in funding under the CSIRO Kick-Start program to advance scandium downstream development opportunities.

Mount Ridley is advancing metallurgical testwork, with its patent-pending, 100% owned Selectro leach technology achieving 80% scandium recovery, alongside high recoveries across the broader Grass Patch critical minerals basket.

Caird said Mount Ridley was looking to meet demand from potential future scandium customers.

“With this supply deficit being very obvious now and highly publicised, I think you’re going to get more early offtake agreements,” he said.

“We want to get that in front of these potential customers sooner rather than later.”

West Cobar Metals is sitting on a scandium resource at its Salazar critical minerals project in Western Australia.

Salazar contains scandium at the Newmont deposit, having a near-surface resource of 15Mt at 153ppm scandium oxide along with rare earths, gallium, titanium and alumina.

West Cobar managing director Matt Szwedzicki said the company had started looking more closely at scandium over the last couple of months, and the recent US loan to Sunrise Energy Metals had provided even more momentum.

“We believe scandium has a very bright future, and we know we've got a deposit with some unique scandium,” he said.

Later this year, West Cobar will undertake the first-ever scandium-focused drilling program at Salazar.

“We've always known the scandium is there in high-grade zones, but we've always been more focused on the rare earths,” Szwedzicki said.

West Cobar Metals' Salazar project. Pic: supplied

West Cobar previously undertook some metallurgical testwork on the scandium mineralisation.

“We've shown that we can leach the scandium into solution at atmospheric pressure and temperature, which is different to what the other scandium players have been doing,” Szwedzicki said.

“Because we've had really encouraging results on the atmospheric path, that's the area that we're now focusing on.”

To progress this scandium testwork, the company has been working with ANSTO and CSIRO.

“We've got a couple of major testwork programmes underway that hopefully will resolve some of the flow sheet optimisation opportunities and really give us an end-to-end flow sheet solution,” Szwedzicki said.

West Cobar is conscious of timing, given the opportunity, and is hoping to fast-track its plans for scandium production.

“We're conscious that the traditional path of moving through the studies into development can be quite long, given approvals and various engineering studies and the like,” Szwedzicki said.

“From our point of view, we're focused on speed of ultimately producing some scandium oxide from this deposit.”

West Cobar has a market capitalisation of just $7 million, but Szwedzicki is confident the company will grow as activity ramps up over the remainder of the year.

“I think once we start putting out some of the news flow that's happening in the background on the scandium, I think it's going to get momentum, so we're pretty excited.”