Consolidation over, Time to shine, page-234

Spot on Bob, it IS a viscous cycle, particularly "viscous" in RE where there is no established metals exchange to underpin a project, even Baotou Exchange is a bit of a Chinese construct with relatively low volumes and problematic access for ex China producers. Only ROW producer of any scale just confirmed they are not selling anything into Chinese spot mkt, 100% of sales are direct downstream.

Exactly why virtually every RE hopeful is still chasing finance to build out projects of any meaningful scale and many are taking the route of concentrates or carbonates to establish CF over a much lower capital base.

ARU's 2700ppm Th makes the export of concentrate highly unlikely, and the cost of dealing with it, along with the expense of reagents to Nolans, makes carbonates difficult, and even then they are dependent solid offtakes.

Apart from the massive CapEx required the very long lead times & lack of expertise add significantly to risk here.