News: PEK Shenghe Resources to buy 19.9% of Australia's Peak Rare Earths, page-206

On doing the processing in Tanzania: let me start by saying that I completely understand where the Tanzanian government is coming from. The more processing they can get done in the country, the more of the 'value add' they capture locally. This would be a significant win for the country, and it makes complete sense for them to want it to happen.

The whole reason for Peak looking to refine offshore is because of availability of the reagents they need (per the Peak website, "particularly hydrochloric acid and caustic soda"). If availability of those chemicals in the country is relatively poor (or expensive), shipping a concentrate to the UK and then processing there makes financial sense. The bulk of HCl consumption is in China, the USA, and Western Europe, so it makes sense that it would be easier/cheaper in the vicinity of Europe than in Africa.

It's that tension between government desires and commercial realities that is where the hold-up exists, I suspect. It's a difficult tightrope to walk and satisfy all parties involved. Without knowing all the details it's not possible to figure out where the best middle ground lies, but I would expect the negotiations to be slowly winding their way towards a conclusion. There's no value to Tanzania in keeping those minerals in the ground. Maybe Tanzania will agree to subsidise HCl and caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), given that those two chemicals are key to a great number of industrial processes.

All speculation, of course; I have no inside knowledge of note.