MP minerals partnership?, page-17

I thought of such re Australian JV considerations JVP. I like ILU past and present business with RE's add ons and O'leary is a good operator - it took a couple of years but he got them there extra Aus Gov funding/loans. Yes some synergies and Iluka only have a 10 year stockpile to process hence their mou's with a couple of regional concentrate producers REE and forget the other - but I personally feel no - given Iluka will only be in full production in 3+ years time at which time ARU will be commissioning Nolan's - plus we already have long established debt facility on highly favorable terms and only await final equity (circa 3-400 million) via JV or others - we have all our HATCH engineering ready to go etc etc - therefore ARU are in box seat to move forward as stand alone mine to oxide RE producer. The margins of toll treating at Iluka would be minimal to that of producing at Nolan's - Lynas logistics is a cash drain and reflects on the company profits as an example. And then there's Gina and I don't believe she would be in favor of such which leads to potential Lynas if any Australian JV outside of HP or Australian Gov themselves similar to US Gov DOD direct investments or indeed HP increasing their holding via a JV as I posted yesterday.

Lynas fits the bill:
Gina's pal Amada Lacaze being CEO of Lynas.
Gina's investment/holding in Lynas - perhaps Gina would be in favor of a JV and later.......
Lynas can bring some quality attributions to the Nolan's project along with equity for a stake.
Lynas would certainly be attracted to all the benefits from Aus Gov that they currently can not access.
Lynas have flagged interest - expansions in RE sector of Malaysia and Brazil recently - don't dismiss Australia - surely why not given instability of current operation?
Synergies from construction through to production through to customer base compelling AND the potential to produce heavies from our seg through Lynas Malaysia plant opposed to mou with Saskatchewan in Canada.
I don't believe Aus Gov would be opposed - It's a JV not a takeover and supports the Gov strategy of fast tracking Australia as a global critical minerals powerhouse.
Quiet compelling - Lynas can come in at a pertinent time - low ball monies in retrospect of where ARU sit at advanced shovel ready project with a current mine life of 38 years - good grades not as high as Mt Weld but very good and similar to Lynas whom know their will be more at depth as they proved up with JORC a couple of years ago over there. Overall I feel more significant synergies with Lynas than Iluka JVP but like you I did assess such.

All RE stocks off 20-30% from recent gains as speculators/punters on Beijings export bans (which ironically remain in place post US -CHINA trade parley) arriving. ARU could settle back in 16c range where it was previously to Beijing RE export bans - until something breaks on JV news - volumes are lowish again - with 2.5 billion SOI very few sellers yet as we know it takes little to shift the SP either way.