The only two things that matter are the price you bought and the price you sell.
Some detail.
There is no need to build a factory. LMG have one already and all processes will be constructed indoors. No weather delays.
There will be requirements for laydown area outside - a holding area before they move indoors but the size of the building means a fair chunck can unloaded and stored indoors out of weather,
LMG is NOT a miner it is an industry. To the extent they have a miners characteristics is the scooping up of flyash down the road and transferred into the plant.
The second product after magnesium is cementitious waste (essentially the same as cement powder) that will be bulk stored prior to shipment to existing cement factories in Victoria and possibly elsewhere to incorporate into their cement product.
The very important task now is to develop an environmental baseline to establish a "before". Areas where some clearing is needed checks that nothing unique or special is lost. The baseline is then obviously checked regularly and randomly and if their are complaints, not just for chemicals, but also for noise, over the DECADES that the plant will be in productionm to ensure that there have been no spills or contamination or noise impact on locals. The noise report for a plant in industrial areas sets the limits and often conrinuously monitored for noise impact on all neighbours, not just residences but on other nearby industries This is standard fare for ALL projects everywhere in Australia. In LMG's case, the process being indoors means if anything is making "too much noise" is much more easily screened.
Unlike the Tasmanian magnesium project which mines its product. ",,GWR to apply our experience in bulk commodity mining and in addition,, we have begun to identify technology partners to provide us with the opportunity of benefiting from downstream processing." meaning they have no processing tech.
This is their magnesium source:Jindalee’s inferred mineralresource estimate at the Arthur River Deposit delivered 25 million tonnes of magnesitegrading 42.4% MgO, 4.8% SiO2, 1.4% Fe2O3 and 2.6% CaO to an average depth of100 metres below surface at a cut-off of 40% MgO.
They are miners hoping to secure some tech. Who else on the planet has tech that has zero CO2 emissions? Rhetorical question. Given the choice, what offtaker, given a choice, would choose magnesium that carries with it CO2 rather than zero? IMV this project is flawed from the get go.
For late comers, LMG will build a 1,000 t.p.a plant first. The point being to get their hands dirty and get all the tweaking done at decent scale. Prudent not build 10,000 t.p.a plant based on bench top or slightly larger trials. It could turn out to be a real money burner trying to get max efficiency and output. (Think the BHP Hot Briquetting plant project which had a billions price tag .. then abandoned.)
BHP-Billiton's hot briquetted iron (HBI) plantin Port Hedland, in north-west Western Australia, is being demolished.Production at the plant stopped in 2004 when a gas explosion killed one workerand seriously burnt two others. Cost $2.5 billion.
Here for more . https://www.copyright link/politics/hbi-plant-a-litany-of-losses-20000508-k9g4p
Once the 1,000 tpa is tuned, any mods or experience gained can be incorporated into the 10,000 tpa. There is NO plan for 3,000 tpa, 40,000 tpa. That is all old news. The demand from their off-takers for LMG once they made a major annoucement, blew these previously proposed growth paths out the water.
The growth path is 1,000 starter. 10,000 tpa for the money and market here (large enough to supply the max offtake of cemetitious product locally (worth 30% of the plants revenue) and supply all Australia's magnesium demand i.e. no further need for mag imports. Then 100,000 tpa plants will be built overseas where massive stocks of high magnesium content ferronickel slag dumps exist.
There will be big demand overseas. First, local toxic waste - (ground water can be contaminated to pH12!) can be turned into money, secondly, once the historical dump runs out, slag gets fed straight into a non-CO2 producing process ensuring the miner can continue to hold their social licence and have a magnesium side hustle. Whats not to like?
It should be obvious, that with the at least 10 major nickel miners/producers globally, a goodly number of LMG tech plants will be built over time. Each 1o0,000 tpa at 1 bn. They may not be owned by LMG its a chunk of cash, but a near perpetual royalty stream is guaranteed and growing. LMG is a stock for passing to grand kids after you have had decades of juicy dividends lifestyle. (Its not just the known 10, but all the other nickel mines that pop up over time.)
Now to conclude, getting the first of type plant is NOT likely to be all sunshine and lollie pops. It might, but "Sod's Immutable Law" will occur somewhere sometime. So what? The LMG team have annoyed everyone with the time taken so far, hopefully whatever happens should be within their experience to remediate promptly. In other words "s**t" happens but highly unlikely to be any fatal flaws IMV. Make your own view.
@cameronbI think that is a pretty lousy slur.
