Some thoughts on why this might take a while and why the market...

Some thoughts on why this might take a while and why the market is tentative. Full disclosure: I'm long/bullish A4N - but I've been keeping tabs on IPT for a time now.

• The Kaolin method - is there still some fear around after the collapse of the Orbite operation in Canada a few years back? That Aussie mob tried reviving the project Advanced Energy Materials, but it never went anywhere - I think they are still trying. ATC is pushing in another direction; Alcoa walked from FYI. I don't know of any precedent for IPT except Orbite, which was a disaster.
• We've seen from A4N that offtake can take years (they still need one); each customer needs HPA to a specific spec and chemistry - it's not a commodity. It's often going in new products, so you are the whim of product lifecycles that can take forever to launch, and they also need to test the crap out of it. The back and forth on testing something like anode coating is a process that can take forever. Does a small, few-person mining prospector have the skills/resources to become a mining and chemical business with a strong marketing arm? It will be a few years of working their ass off to get the offtake required to get even a tiny operation up and going. We've seen FYI fail, A4N struggle and ATC pivot. Do the Sumitomo's of the world have a strong hold on this market? How much money is it going to take to get there?
• If you can make HPA via solvent extraction method as per A4N, with a common feedstock from the Bayer process and some Ammonium Nitrate from Alcoa (and with the ability to repeat that process easily anywhere in the world), and with the ability to make a broad range of complimentary aluminium salts to go with your HPA - why would you fund a HPA only clay project with a limited mine life? Of course, cost is the obvious answer, and the numbers look good. But it will need to be a lot cheaper than other methods - it will be interesting to see how the numbers compare with A4N's updated DFS when that drops.
• There have been so many HPA wannabees on the ASX I've lost count - is there HPA fatigue? For a while, back in the gold old days of 2019, it seemed like anyone with a bit of clay was putting their hand up and screaming ME TOO! And nothing came of any of it.
• A4N is looking to supply a low-cost ($5k-10k) but high-purity alumina tri-hydroxide ATH or high-purity pseudo-boehmite to the incumbents for them to bypass the carbon-intensive/expensive part of their production process. What happens to the market if the incumbents get a new lease on life?
• It's still a small market; what is it? 50,000tpa total, maybe 70,000tpa? That will get bigger, but it does not lend itself to the HPA nirvana storyline that many wannabe producers sell to their shareholders of massive deficits into the sunset.

I've been keeping my eye on IPT and will continue to; they might be the ones that can pull it all off - it's just a massive ask.

DYOR - Good luck all