The table, which is obviously one preapred by IXR to highlight the basket price advantage of thier deposit, offers a comparison against o the current and developing prospects. You will note however, that much of the data they reference is far from current. MP resources has 2014 data, northern minerals was their 2015 DFS, peak resources data from 2017 and a couple others from 2019. The resource in the ground wont change but the basket price thats subject to the market rate of REE that has fluctuated massively in the last decade suggests to me its not an apples with apples comparison. The question is why use that data? Some might say they are conveniently selecting the data that best helps make their case. Having gone trawling the internet for info for some time now, I dont believe that's the case at all. There is just simply bugger all data out there. Minable REE deposits are few and far between, its still early days for this space. Lets not forget too, that most of the mines and indeed international expertise is in China. They hold thier cards close to their chest, good luck finding reliable data from there.
What we can see from the table if you adjust a little for the date of the data to current market prices, is a correlation in the approximate basket price to the host mineral/soil. Ionic clays we typically know to have a good economic grade and price. Monazite and Bastnaesite sit in th lower end of the basket price spectrum and are very similar to each other. I did find it interesting that the Xenotime crystaline depsit was similar to the igneous rock rhyolite, but again, it's just one example of each. Hardly a data set.
To use the data available, what kind of host material is present at Yttria? We don't know. TREOY is present in the weathered regolith, but where's the historical data for that? I can't find any. The source is likely an igneous alkaline intrusion, but of what make-up? We don't know yet. We had one drill hole (1377) indicate the possibility of the presence of xenotime, but that's really all we've got to go on right now. The space is emerging and the geology still not completely understood. Maybe we fall into none of the known categories... now wouldn't that be interesting. Almost feel sorry for the consulting firm doing the PFS in that scenario.
In any event
@melburnian , this will be a very interesting thing to watch pan out as more information becomes available. As far as a risk vs reward, I don't think it's a bad thing to have a little skin in the game just in case.
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