Lynas + Aurizon, page-6

Mt Weld ops will put ore concentrate (in 2.8-metric ton bags) on trucks for a two-three hour ~120-km drive to the railhead at Lenora. Then by rail ~240-km to Lynas Kalgoorlie C&L operations where bags are offloaded (likely onto trucks for last-mile delivery to Lynas, but I don't know).

The ore concentrate then becomes REE carbonate at KAL and is put into bags again, but they won't weigh as much when filled with carbonate. The REE carbonate gets loaded back onto the rail for a 640-km trip to Fremantle port.

The resulting byproduct WLP/NUF is put back on rail (hopefully not in bags) to be taken to a storage facility nearby.

I think the integration of materials handling at KAL will likely involve some very close work with rail operator Aurizon to contain costs.

Shipping REEE carbonate from Fremantle to Kuantan takes 12-18 days (in the past anyway). FWIW, I just found the shipping estimated at 24-36 days using an on-line estimator regardless port-or-origin Darwin or Fremantle to Kuantan.

“This process takes approximately 12-18 days from Fremantle to Kuantan. We normally have a total of 7-21 days approximately of concentrate feedstock as buffer feedstock for our Malaysian plant. At any given time, the buffer feedstock is partly at the Malaysian plant, partly in transit and partly at Mt. Weld,” stated the spokesperson.

The logistics are nuts right now so who knows, but it does not make sense to me to rail it five times as far (Kal to Darwin vs Kal to Fremantle) and then ship it from Darwin where the difference is the shipping distance is less but not by much and that's the cheapest part of the trip.

Good on Aurizon for growing; big step. Actually looked into the ticker and then the company and I hope they right the ship so to speak as they diversify from coal hauling, because without them Lynas would have a problem.

Lynas will be shipping significantly less bulk and weight to Kuantan; I would guess the weight would be roughly third to half, but someone knows better.