Good to see someone here has done a little DD outside the deluded drivel here, evidenced by previous posts, spendthrift very obviously way too close to Gavin's office to have any lateral vision.
What you need to understand is REO is a CO-product from the Heavy Mineral (HM) sands business with the monazite portion basically a waste that can be monetised via contained REE, "free" feedstock if you like, already partially processed by Mother Nature over millennium.
A little research would show Eneabba is well advanced on a relatively simple mechanical plant ($30/40M cost) that will upgrade that 10% TREO (currently generating +CF via ~40+ktpa exports to China) t0 90% TREO which equates to 60% TREO concentrate with similar NdPr grades to MtW, and that is due to commission early 2022.
VERY clearly RE from mineral sands is already generating cash flow right now, it will upgrade to a far more valuable product via low cost plant in a few months, while they consider a much larger investment further downstream. Meantime ARU still flounders, with a CapEx that is going to blow out big time (not on their own there but they do have a monster to start with), NO ROW customers, NO finance, & 5+ yrs to any meaningful CF.
Note below, for spendthrifts education, the process ACDC will employ, extracts both U/Th & Radium and it will be based in Sth Aust to take advantage of the recently approved radioactive waste disposal facility:
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/South-Australian-site-to-host-national-radwaste-faView attachment 3864512Process also runs a cerium depletion step and produces a clean concentrate that can basically go straight to SX. Just committed funds to pre IPO so imagine there will be more info out & about shortly, they have some work to do to prove up historical drilling for a JORC so not as advanced as Eneabba but their CapEx will be similar to ~60% TREO.
Nothing goes in a straight line but trying to blow off monazite waste > REO is simply foolish, particularly when sitting on a $1Bn+++ white elephant.
OMG - Iluka to China. Gee, this fixes everything about decentralisation of RE supply outside China???!!! Good work Einstein. This isn’t exactly new info!!!
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