It's good to see some figures for the HRE carbonate sales to...

It's good to see some figures for the HRE carbonate sales to thyssenkrupp, A$971k for 39t/39,000kg works out to A$24.90/kg, or US$18.67 at US$.75 -A$1.

My estimate for the current Browns Range HRE carbonate basket value @ 50% REO, based on SMM spot (ex. VAT), is US$33.72/kg. So it looks like NTU is receiving approx. 55% of the REO basket value for their carbonate product. If you apply the same logic to the 30% xenotime concentrate product the REO basket value would be US$20.23.

The question then is what discount do you apply to this figure to get a sell price for the x concentrate? According to reports, MP Materials and Rainbow Rare Earths receive 30% of the contained REO value for their LRE ore concentrates which are processed in the PRC. So Browns Range 30% x concentrate at 30% contained REO value could sell for US$6.07/kg or A$8.09/kg.

It's interesting to see that NTU are focussed on their drilling and concentrate FS activities and are not busting a gut to produce carbonate, nor do thyssenkrupp appear to be in any great hurry to collect carbonate for tolling or on-sale to separators. Maybe, as reported in the Rare Earth Observer, this is due to Chinese RE processors being pressured by the PRC government not to toll process 3rd party carbonates and by manipulating VAT rebates for RE products to preference imports of RE concentrates over carbonates or separated oxides, in order to keep most of the RE processing value add in China.