Thanks. That was my first ever post. I was replying to ChinaSyndrome about the manipulation of the REE price. China is currently the lowest cost producer because they have been mining ionic clay deposits. They are just applying their market dominance. This is all changing with the Caldeira deposit. It is also why companies such as Arafura and Lindian share prices have tanked. Both mine apatite mineralisation which are rare earth phosphates and require expensive processing. Lindian is trying to sell a rare earth phospate mix which has a value of about US $11 per kg because it requires further processing in a plant like that proposed by Arafura. Arafura's capital cost will be about 1.2 billion dollars. So Arafura definitely won't be on the market before MEI and it definitely wont be the lowest cost producer. Lowest cost producer means breaking the Chinese stranglehold and is therefore a world domination play. Hence the takeover theory.
Lastly, the separation technologies I referred to related to the separation into individual REEs, not the washing from clay, which is pretty straight forward in MEIs case.
MEI Price at posting:
20.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
