race to the finish line, page-45

CUX Resource

386,860,000mt @ 0.02% TREO

= 27,275t of Xenotime and 160,900t of Monazite. Zircon will not be mined due to metallurgical difficulty and high capital expenditure.

Monazite is 65% REO and Xenotime is 62% REO giving

16,910 tonnes of REE xenotime mineral and 104,585 tonnes of REE monazite material

total REE mineral is 121,495 tonnes

Recovery of 70% and concentrate grades of 6.25%

Likely recoverable REEs from Xenotime:

Dy 2%: 338t x 70% = 236t
Er 1.2%: 202t x 70% = 141t
Y 12.9%: 2181t x 70% = 1226t
Tb 0.37%: 62t x 70% = 43t

Likely recoverable REE from Monazite:

La 18%: 18,720 x 70% = 13,100t
Ce 38%: 39,500 x 70% = 27,600t
Pr 4.2%: 4368 x 70% = 3057t
Nd 14.9%: 15,400 x 70% = 10,800t


If you assume the company mines the entire indicated resource over a period of time, they will have a throughput of 386,860,000 mt over the life of mine.

Over a 20 year mine life, the plant would need to process 19,343,000t of ore each year which is simply impossible. But assuming it was, annual production would be:

12t of Dy @ FOB $1040/kg
7t of Er @ FOB $160/kg
61t of Y @ FOB $145/kg
2t of Tb @ $2000/kg

650t of La @ $25/kg
1200t of Ce @25/kg
152t of Pr @ $115/kg
540t of Nd @ $115

As the current concentrate is only 6.5%/TREO, CUX would likely only receive at best 16% of FOB:

Dy $1,900,000/pa
Er $179,000/pa
Y $1,415,000/pa
Tb $$640,000/pa

La $2,600,000
Ce $5,100,000
Pr $2,800,000
Nd $9,000,000

Total = $23,000,000 revenue.

Cost of production: even if you assumed they could match Lyc or Mcp, which they cant, COP is $15/kg

= $39,000,000

a loss of $16,000,000m

But obviously you cant process 20mt of ore a year, so the actual project economics are far worse than this fanciful, yet uneconomic example.