Sam Riggall

Managing Director & CEO | Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX: SRL) | Critical minerals executive developing the Sunrise nickel-cobalt-scandium project in NSW

"CEO of Sunrise Energy Metals, developing one of the world's largest scandium deposits with US$400 million in conditional U.S. Defense Department backing."

Mining Executive

Website

Biography

Sam Riggall is Managing Director and CEO of Sunrise Energy Metals (ASX: SRL), the Australian developer behind the Sunrise Nickel-Cobalt-Scandium Project in central-west New South Wales — one of the world's largest and highest-grade scandium deposits. Scandium is a scarce, high-value metal used in aluminium-scandium alloys that lighten aircraft and defense components; China dominates its supply. Riggall drew wider investor attention in August 2026, when the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Strategic Capital conditionally committed up to US$400 million in loans to help his company build a primary scandium supply chain outside China.

His record runs through some of the mining industry's largest development stories. Riggall spent more than a decade at Rio Tinto in project generation and evaluation, business development, and capital market transactions. He then served as Executive Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Planning at Ivanhoe Mines, working on the agreements that advanced the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia, and sat on the board of Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia from 2010 to 2015. He joined Clean TeQ Holdings — renamed Sunrise Energy Metals in 2021 — as CEO in 2013; Ivanhoe founder Robert Friedland now chairs the company.

His approach at Sunrise is deliberately staged. Rather than building the full-scale nickel-cobalt mine outlined in the 2018 Definitive Feasibility Study (pre-production capital of US$1.33 billion), the company completed a scandium-focused feasibility study in early 2026 for a standalone plant producing roughly 60 tonnes of high-purity scandium oxide a year — a volume Riggall argues could displace Chinese scandium supply for U.S. buyers. On battery metals, he has pressed automakers to invest directly in mines to secure their own supply rather than rely on the spot market.

For investors, Riggall is a useful window into the critical minerals thesis as a policy story, not just a price story: how offtake agreements (long-term supply contracts between producer and buyer), government loan books, and Western industrial demand decide which projects actually get built. His focus now is converting the conditional U.S. loan into final financing and first production — Sunrise is still a developer, and execution risk is real. He also teaches the investor side of the trade, including a master class at Bloor Street Capital's Virtual Rare Earth Conference in July 2026.

Videos (1)

Virtual Rare Earth Conference - Master Class on Investing in Rare Earth Sector

guest Jul 11, 2026

Top takeaway Sam argues Sunrise's Syerston project will be the world's first primary scandium mine, with ore grades of about 650 ppm scandium versus 10-20 ppm in Chinese scandium currently recovered as a by-product from waste streams.
He frames scandium demand as structurally tight and largely non-substitutable: one chipmaker told him the only 'plan B' if China cuts scandium supply is going back to 3G, and he cites solid oxide fuel cells (a NASA-origin technology used by Bloom Energy), defense alloys (drones, the F-35 program), and 5G/6G RF filtering chips as the key growth markets.
He sizes the market at around 100 tonnes of scandium oxide demand today (versus USGS figures of 40-50 tonnes) and forecasts ~300 tonnes/year by 2030 and 500-600 tonnes/year by 2035, with the chip-grade metal market around 5 tonnes globally.
The 2024/2025 feasibility study calls for roughly $120M capex for a 60-tonne/year scandium oxide mine-and-refinery, a C1 cash cost around $540/kg of oxide, and first commercial production in mid-2028, with construction already underway and long-lead equipment orders being placed.
He expects funding announcements from North American government programs in the coming months and is exploring US metallization capacity so the chip supply chain can be supplied with metalized scandium without going through China.

China controls 60% of mining, 91% of refining, and 94% of magnet output, pushing Western governments to fund non-Chinese rare earth supply. Dysprosium is up 300% and terbium is up 400% on Chinese export restrictions, with Western buyers still struggling to secure heavy rare earths. Heavy rare earths are hardest to extract economically; China refines roughly 98% of heavy metal, the gap G7 nations are racing to close. Rainbow Rare Earths targets 2029 production by recovering rare earths from phosphate mining waste stockpiles, sidestepping traditional mining risk. Humanoid robots could use 3 to 5 times more permanent magnets per unit than an EV, opening a major new rare earth demand vector.

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Key Quotes

"a unique position within the broader critical minerals landscape"

— Statement on the U.S. Office of Strategic Capital's conditional US$400 million loan commitment for the Sunrise scandium project, August 2026

"The rules have changed."

— Commentary urging carmakers to invest in mines to avoid a battery metal supply pinch, Engineering News, 2019

Key Works

Master Class on Investing in Rare Earth Sector — Virtual Rare Earth Conference (Bloor Street Capital) (2026)

Investor education session on rare earth and critical minerals investing; Riggall presented the case for building a Western scandium supply chain.

Sunrise Scandium Project Feasibility Study (Sunrise Energy Metals) (2026)

Company feasibility study for a scandium-first development of the Sunrise deposit in New South Wales, outlining production of high-purity scandium oxide for Western supply chains.

Clean TeQ Sunrise Definitive Feasibility Study (2018)

Full-scale development plan for the Sunrise nickel-cobalt-scandium project, completed under Riggall's leadership as CEO.

Specializations

Nickel Cobalt Rare Earths Australia Battery Materials Critical Minerals

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