Ann: Quarterly Activities Report, page-19

Reflection from the peanut gallery:

Despite ~50yrs prior experience @ Mt Pass + >US$1bn + 3yrs endeavour dear old Aunt Moly NEVER produced any quantity of on spec REO, best they ever managed was a bit over 1ktpQ of concentrate, which they had to ship to either Estonia or China for separation & finishing to oxides.

Despite the input of both Rhodia & Chinese expertise to LAMP it experienced the most horrendous experiences in materials handling, flow control, and stabilisation for 2.5yrs before the process could be controlled in a cohesive fashion. 5.5yrs later it is still 12 months, perhaps 18, away from maybe 90% optimisation of the built base.

Basically they were just attempting to produce La, Ce & NdPr @ 99% from 6% & 10% TREO grades respectively. From the lay RE observer, those experiences go a long way to explaining why ALK has not progressed beyond 12yrs of piloting, there are far simpler & far more cost effective ways to produce 1200tpa NdPr.