Ann: Quarterly Activities/Appendix 4C Cash Flow Report, page-90

Interesting play this one - appears to have a clay deposit (Laverton) and a hard rock deposit (Pomme), and need to say the Pomme historicals are pretty good on a TRE basis. This post hasn't taken long as just copy and paste from when I posted in the past on rare earths. This link is pretty good to: Rare earth element ore geology of carbonatites | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)

Hard rock versus clay versus ionic

Whilst rare earth are common, getting them in sufficient economic quantities is not. In this article - https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/7/11/203/pdf - I found this comment interesting in italics below on page 6. Basically confirming most rare earth identified resources are low grade (with the discussion on page 7 and 8 also interesting)

"Additionally, it should be noted that REE resources, as opposed to REE reserves, have not have demonstrated economic viability. Reserves could be economically extracted or produced at the time of determination, while resources are merely an indication of potential economic feasibility, and the global REE resources, therefore, are substantially higher than figures published by the USGS [22] (126 Mt REO). About 27% of these deposits have REO ore grades <0.2%; 55% of projects have REO ore grades <1%, and only 5% of deposits have REO concentrations >10%. While almost all of the current REE deposits in production have REO ore grades >1%, such as 8.8% in the Mount Weld central lanthanide deposit (CLD), 5% in Bayan Obo, and 1.12% in Levozero, about 42% of these deposits are below the medium size, and 76% contain <1 Mt REO. While 5% contain >10 Mt REO, these giant deposits need to be further exploited and developed in the future."

In other words, more than likely it is going to be medium to high grade REE deposits that will cut the mustard noting those deposits that have a richer component of the rare earths destined for the EV market are the ones going to be better off as well. The highest concentrations of rare earths are in carbonatites btw, with a number of these rock formations identified in the world albeit few sites have enough of this rock type bearing rare earths in commercial quantities to be mined (see above link and at https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70138176 ). Bastnäsite is in the carbonatites group.

will simply only note here that Neodymium is commonly found in carbonatites in the mineral bastnäsite, and that bodes well for MNB, givene this rare earths importance in the magnet market.
https://hastingstechmetals.com/rare-earths/neodymium/

The wikipedia page linked below is also an interesting read as well for bastnasite, especially at the end of it where they talk about the process flow sheet for getting the various REEs from ore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastnäsite

Repeat though grade here is good at Pomme, in terms of reporting to date, but more drilling will determine whether one has an economic mine or not. Generally speaking because of the below, hard rock deposits generally need higher grades than clays/ionic to be viable.

Rare earth process flowsheet has some unique differences especially because of ore type, but as a first call I will simply say a REE clay deposit is very different to a hard rock REE deposit, and even REE hard rock deposits are very different depending on what is the host ore, because processes also differ depending on the ore type. There is little/limited bonding of the REE to clay as against REEs in hard rock, meaning separation is a lot easier as well at the benficiation stage, which allows improved ability to separate minerals, say through using their specific gravities for example from the gangue, to then move to the other aspects of the process flowsheet. This pic from BioLantanidos explains that best too me - http://www.hochschildmining.com/en/exploration/greenfield_exploration/biolantanidos

That is the beneficiation stage is a lot more straight forward for clays when compared to hard rock for REEs is the point, which then aids costs further downstream as well, but is still relatively complex.



MTM still proving up a resource
Mining rare earths is environmentally sensitive and always has been, but mining itself does deal with environmental issues. establishing your mineral resource estimate first, with enough resources in the Measured and Indicated category so as to provide the basis for doing your evaluation studies because that is where you start dealing with these issues more broadly in determining what solutions are required and how costly those solutions are and how they may impact viability. The interesting thing too me is MTM does have a pretty significant resource in the Indicated bucket for Pomme, which is interesting and the drilling program upcoming is going to be interesting if this is confirmed and increased.

Overall
MTM is a high risk high reward plays, but ultimately rare earths are required as part of the EV and renewable energy revolution, so solutions to mining will be found IMO as they always are. And noting rare earth shortfalls, well at the end of the day solutions and new supply is going to be required especially if you are also seeking to reduce China's dominance in that market.And then pricing a basket - once get there I am sure a few will be able to help those understand basket prices etc - posted this in MEI a while back (and the concept of Ex-cerium as well). In brief, you can more easily remove cerium from rare earths because it is relatively stable in oxidized form, with the other elements then recovered by solvent extraction by and large. The question is where in the process does this happen?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309342584_Cerium_Separation_from_Light_Rare_Earth_Concentrate_by_Liquid-Liquid_Extraction

In addition, cerium in the rare earth solution that goes to separation facilities can act as a 'penalty' hence you want to be removing this before your sales to 'Separation' facilities and obviously sell what cerium you recover yourself - i.e. your customers that separate the rare earth elements from the solution.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-95022-8_233

Basket price: refer
https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/65423696/single

Given there are 17 elements you have to understand conversions to oxides and then weight the basket - refer post above. For those seeking to understand the conversions they are individually based and you have to work within this formula you attain for each REE and how it converts to oxides.

Example: Take Lanthanum and convert to an oxide using this link:
https://www.convertunits.com/molarmass/La2O3

The “factor” equates an elemental assay to an oxide concentration for each element:
Relative Atomic Mass (La) = 138.9055
Relative Atomic Mass (O) = 15.9994
Total molecular weight of La203 = (2x 138.9055 + 3x 15.9994)) = 325.8092g/mol
Oxide Conversion Factor = 1/((2x 138.9055)/(325.8092)) = 1.173

All IMO, but rare earths are one of those areas where there is a lot to learn and has taken ages to learn stuff. getting back to MTM will keep it on a watch list as looks interesting. All the best to holders etc.

Posted for research purposes only.

All IMO