Media, page-531

More evidence that people are starting to take notice and realize that REE's are about to become a major commercial commodity; quite a few Cowboys are now emerging to ride they Hype. We have seen in the past that whenever a mineral becomes a "Hot" prospect, only a handful of projects succeed to become major producers; another hundred or so will become small but profitable operations and there will be a thousand and one other projects generated that will just siphon off some cash from unsuspecting investors.

Aside from dodging the outright scams (Brex, Posidon, Tasminex etc) The biggest danger for the uneducated Investor lies in not understanding the Realities of mining: Yes, every cubic Km of seawater contains a ton of Gold ~ BUT nobody has worked out a way to extract it economically (yet). Yes there are mid ocean vents grading 45% Zn 5%Cu and 5gm Au ~ BUT not only are they 2km down on the bottom of the sea floor, but if you could mine them, what would you do with the waste. And now there are people promoting "Conceptual targets" of Ionic Clay deposits, which are being touting as a cheap and simple source of REE's; Yes they were in the Past,

BUT :

These deposits are an Environmental disaster waiting to be repeated,

With in-situ average grades of 300-400ppm TREE, they are at least an order of magnitude lower than Longonjo, add to that the facts that these clay layers are relatively thin (4-6m) and are overlain with / and contain waste. Yes it is possible to speculate that the "Conceptual" deposit might contain upwards of 280 million tonnes when you include all of the material to be mined, but when only around 130m of the 700m drilled and sampled actually comes in @ above grade then you are neglecting to recognize a Strip ratio of 5:1; All up that is around 50:1 differential in the mining cost alone, OPEX per ton mined might be cheaper but certainly not 50 times cheaper !!!

Given that 280mt, let's be generous and assign it an average depth of 18m and a SG of 2 ~ that equates to a volume of 140Mcm for a mining area of 8sqKm. Incidentally this is roughly a 4 fold increase of what has currently been drilled !

So they plan to mine 280mt over an area of ~ 8 sqKm, process it thru an Acid leach plant and then pump the 280mt of highly fluid waste back into the 8 sqKm hole ! But what about swell ? that 280mt of (ore ?) will now be closer to 400mt of slimes, Uh Oh it will not fit ! they are going to need another 4-6 SqKm of tailings ponds. And those Acidic tailings ponds/back-filled holes are going to have a problem supporting plant growth for quite a while !!!. Which leads us to my final question ~ What are the 200+ subsistence farmers and their families, who are currently living right on top of the deposit, going to eat for the next generation or so ?

Conceptually speaking, I can't see any reputable Company that embraces ESG wanting to be associated with any Ionic Clay deposit ! it might fly for a while in Oz, but Corporate conscience or the Greens will eventually prevail.

Note for the great unwashed: Longonjo's processing circuit will probably comprise of Gravity, froth flotation and electro Magnetic/Static units, non of which should cause the local environment any long term harm, Much higher grades means much less ore will be mined for a given amount of product, which in turn means that the mine, waste dump (negligible) and tailings will have correspondingly much smaller footprints.