I bought some ILU today - I was previously a shareholder about...

I bought some ILU today - I was previously a shareholder about 15 years ago. Whilst today's news re increased costs for the Rare Earth plant is disappointing, it's not surprising since cost blowouts seem the norm as the moment.

The reason I bought ILU is that IMO things have fundamentally changed. I'm not sure that many investors fully appreciate the impact and longer term ramifications of this change. Until recently, China had an absolute mortgage and control over the global rare earths market. Western producers simply could not compete on price against Chinese rare earths (and typically rare earth projects require significant capital to develop) and therefore Western rare earth resources were left undeveloped. A good example being ALK's Dubbo rare earths project which has been around for decades and has now been spun out into ASM - this is a good project but has a very high capital cost to develop so has never been developed. Why develop when you can buy rare earths relatively cheaply from China?

Well, things have now fundamentally changed. The West has realized that relying on China for rare earth supply is a huge security risk!! Therefore, the West is determined to establish their own supply chains, albeit they acknowledge that this will be significantly more expensive than relying on Chinese rare earths. Enter ILU, who looks very well placed to benefit from this Policy pivot.

GLTA & DYOR