Impact Minerals managing director Dr Mike Jones says the advanced developer and explorer is going full bore as it aims to enter the high purity alumina market as early as next year.

"We get two bites of the cherry for that," he explains.

The first is through the company's flagship Lake Hope HPA project and the second is thanks to Impact's investment in HPA processing technology company Alluminous.

Impact's recent prefeasibility study on Lake Hope outlined a low-cost, 33-year initial minelife with a post-tax NPV10 of A$1.1 billion – and it didn't include the project's potential as a significant potash producer.

Work using a $2.87 million federal grant, in partnership with Edith Cowan University and CPC Engineering, is focused on finetuning processing to produce HPA, plus investigating a new method to produce potash as a primary byproduct from the Lake Hope material.

"It's a pretty exciting development," Dr Jones said.

However Impact's entry into the HPA market is likely to be accelerated through its 50% stake in Alluminous, which uses solvent extraction to produce HPA from feedstock. Its pilot plant is nearing commissioning and customer engagement is underway.

Tim Netscher, who played an instrumental role in Gold Road Resources' $3.7 billion acquisition by Gold Fields this year, was recently appointed as Alluminous' non-executive chair to guide the transition to commercialisation.

"We believe that Alluminous will be able to produce material for clients early in 2026," Dr Jones said.

"We're also looking at whether or not we can provide Lake Hope material for the Alluminous process at a cheaper cost than the current feedstock."

HPA with 99.99% purity, known as 4N, is forecast to enter a supply deficit in the coming years due to growing demand in high-tech applications such as LEDs, sapphire glass, semiconductors and as its use as a separator coating in lithium-ion batteries to improve safety and performance.

Exploration sizzle

While derisking continues towards HPA production, Impact is reinvigorating exploration at its Broken Hill project in New South Wales in light of higher metal prices, renewed corporate activity in the region and new in-house exploration concepts, that were developed during Impact's participation in BHP's inaugural Xplor program.

Impact has one of the largest footprints in the region with 1,770sq.km and its tenements are prospective for three different types of mineralisation – large copper deposits, nickel-copper-PGM sulphides and Broken Hill-style silver-lead-zinc mineralisation.

Dr Jones plans drilling early in the next quarter to follow up on previous results including 0.6m at 7.6% copper, 7.4% nickel, 25.6g/t palladium, 11.5g/t platinum, 1.4gt/t gold, 44.3g/t silver, 1.3g/t rhodium, 1.7g/t iridium, 2g/t osmium and 0.8g/t ruthenium.

"We're eager to see the results," he said.

The company is systematically divesting its other legacy projects and completed two deals so far this year.

Impact received a final $350,000 payment in May for the sale of its Blackridge Queensland gold assets, where it retains a 1% net smelter return royalty on gold production over 5,000 ounces.

It also entered a joint venture with Kuniko in September over its Commonwealth gold-silver-copper project in NSW, which leaves Impact with a 30% free-carried interest to a decision to mine.

"We're managing risk across our portfolio and we're not ready to put all our eggs into one basket yet," Dr Jones said.

"Our key focus in 2026 is to ensure we enter the HPA market in terms of engagement with customers and off-take partners as early as we can."