I'm trying to keep it simple for you guys, but you seem to be missing the salient points here. ARR have a very large but very low-grade deposit... premise being cheap upgrading into a higher-grade leach feed (beneficiation), then cheap leaching of the REO from beneficiated ore, then cheap extraction and ultimately separation of individual RE-oxides.
The SS metallurgists inserted a 650deg C calcine roasting step to oxidise Ce+3 into Ce+4 so it would become insoluble in the leach and thus not require expensive processing and separation from the other valuable RE-oxides for no financial return. The capex and opex to roast 24,000t of leach feed con each year is not cheap obviously... now pay attention here... obviously it was still cheaper than leaching the Ce+3 into the Re liquor and the cost of dealing with Ce 'contamination'. If it was cheaper to let the Ce leach with the other RE's than calcine roast, then the met's wouldn't have recommended the calcine roasting process right...
So other than some DH posters here, my issue is that ARR are being valued and talked up like a sure thing when the preliminary flowsheet looks full of risks and cost blowouts imo. Remove the calcine roast because it stuffs up the allanite leach at 100deg C in vat tanks, but wear the higher cost and separation difficulty and possibly lower NdPr recoveries... that's a negative on costs and they haven;t even started a pilot plant that may well throw the whole baby out with leach liquor?
Posters encouraged me to put up or shut up, so I intend to put up a more realistic opinion shall we say. Acid bake can be tricky to perfect, but it means >90% REO recoveries to a water leach, from 10-15x less leach ore feed. The Chinese perfected it ages ago, LYC are now all over it, MP Minerals used to do it and I imagine will be over it again, ILU have 30 years' experience roasting ilmenite into synthetic rutile and start with a sweet 60% TREO, 85% monazite, low contaminant feed so I'm confident they will get on top of it quickly.
Energy Fuels just bought BSE for their ILU style beach sand monazite con which is so much easier than Mt Welds ultra fine oxidised ore it;s not funny. NEO performance Matals just did a deal for MEI Brazil ionic clay MREC (no cracking required for ICDs), LIN Kangakunde produces a 60% TREO 90% monazite that will be sweet to process also looking for a home... and the list goes on.
Not saying ARR won;t get a seat at the production table int he end, just in the game of RE musical chairs, there aren't many seats to go around it's the most cost competitive projects that will get developed and hopefully make profits for investors. 4000ppm hard rock ore is a big handicap no matter how big the deposit is... all or nothing yeah... GLTAH
ARR Price at posting:
28.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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