A problem with most of the Australian projects is their price...

A problem with most of the Australian projects is their price assumptions. This isn't limited to HAS specifically, but something that investors really need to be wary of.

Running NPV estimates based on estimates >$100 per kg when the price is near $60 is just not how you are supposed to run NPV calculations. Recycling taking up a bigger proportion of supply, rising Chinese quotas and most significantly the end of the Chinese EV subsidies putting a stopper on exponential EV growth over there makes it seem unlikely to me we will see a sharp recovery in prices in 2023. Further out, this may change, but its at the point where I believe adding to rare earth stock positions would be best done when the turn in prices starts eventuating as you will see some of the projects just shut up shop and avoid steep losses. If you have free cash from the AI surge like me I'd park it elsewhere especially given opportunities on the ASX at the moment.

Based on my own calcs HAS will be basically be breaking even at current prices if they can get to stage 2. I expect stage 1 to be loss making so that they are basically relying on price recovery before 2025. The company was also much more forthcoming with communications earlier, I would go through how they arrived at their EBITDA estimates and Matthew Allen even requested the spreadsheet I had so he could go through it. Since he left though its been much harder to get responses.

I still like how HAS is positioned relative to the other rare earths dreamers. Top three most likely next producers still ILU, HAS and PEK in my mind. But staged production seems to be a step toward risk rather than away from it which I don't like.

Certainly the extra 50m in debt letter of support is the one bright spot in this update. I don't understand how the banks are underwriting though. They must be seeing something that I'm not seeing.