Vital said the acquisition of Quebec Precious Metals Corp's 68% interest in the Kipawa heavy rare earths project and 100% of the Zeus heavy rare earth project "complement" its light rare earths operations at Nechalacho at Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

The former was a joint venture involving Toyota, whose interest was subsequently converted into a 10% NPI.

A feasibility study on Kipawa was completed in 2013 that Vital said it would optimise.

"Part of Vital's corporate DNA is our ability to identify the most efficient and effective way to develop rare earth projects," the company said.

"Similar to Nechalacho where we have applied an alternative development strategy to greatly reduce capital costs and development timelines, we see similar opportunities for improvements to the existing development strategy at Kipawa and we look forward to defining our development strategy over the coming months."

Vital started rare earth production at Nechalacho in June, with staged production increases funded by cashflow the plan.

Vital started the current quarter with A$34.9 million.

Shares in Vital were up 5% to 6.4c in afternoon trade, capitalising the company at $266 million.

Vital's stock was trading at about 1.5c 12 months ago.