To be fair to LIN, every single RE developer including ionic...

To be fair to LIN, every single RE developer including ionic clays are gilding the lily on costs and revenue and LT product pricing assumptions. The ionic clay guys will not be leaching clays in the ground like Myanmar and China before it, but having to process, thicken, floc and store a huge amount of clay in tailings dams then co-dispose back into an acceptable rehab for local owners which is not easy or cheap. That large amount of clay to process in controlled tanks/plant will also be high capex... doubt they will be all that cheap either when the slime settles and opex is realistically known for western ionic production...

Point being, yes LIN used a rising REE price and optimistic payability assumptions to make the investment look it's best, just like everyone else. Mrs 2ic uses quite a bit of makeup to look her best, as do all the other women, and I think I speak for most men when i say we are very glad for it. Everyone wants to look their best right, and very few look just as good in the cold light of day the morning after. This metaphor is wandering sorry, point is I still choose Mrs 2ic over the others because bit of make-up aside, better than the rest is simply great...

What the mineral sands guys, like LIN, have going for them is a very high-grade concentrate that means smaller capex and opex per tonne of production for the downstream refiners despite some aggressive cracking conditions to deal with. Refining MREC is virtually the same for monazite derived as ionic clay derived MREC, so the only difference is in cost to MREC stage. Time will tell how cheap the MEIs of the world end up with very large tonnes to deal with...

GLTAH