Ann: Request for Extension of Voluntary Suspension, page-28

What makes them rare is that they rarely form in large enough quantities to be mined economically. Thats a completely different scenario to running out.

Given the sparsity of large enough economically viable deposits, price fluctuation and the complexity of separation how is it even remotely more viable to be scraping vast quantities of the surface of the earth containing near zero concentration vs an actual focused deposit?

Ignoring all its other uses and separation for a moment, there isnt enough RE being mined for the electrification of the planet, period. If you are conflicted as to whether this is going to happen or not take a look at the EV uptake in china in the past quarter. The CCP isnt stupid, which is why they control 80% of the worlds supply and have a 40 year head start. It wont be long until people are sick of oil prices/maintenance cost etc etc and we are flooded with Chinese EV's.

Its going to take time/money/pain/stress to close that 40 year gap. For eg, you could probably count on 1 hand the total number of earth science Phd's who leave uni each year specializing in RE in the west. Theres isnt even a job market for the industry.

What separates VML from other tickers is their flat out refusal to play ball with the CCP (and that the deposit has formed minus radioactive material, so subtract ongoing management costs). The CCP is the worlds largest consumer and will probably remain so for at least the next decade. Yeah its a mind numbingly stupid decision but thats the state of play.

The largest deposit in the US is MP (partially owned by the CCP, who also has a binding agreement for almost 100% of their output) which has been in continuous operation since 2017 (this run) and steadily increasing year on year to keep up with demand. They received $30m iirc from the Biden gov to increase production to meet the demands of the GE/GM/Vacuumschmelz JV.

The issue isnt that we are going to run out, its that we dont have enough and the west made the stupid decision to add some creative tax legislation and outsource the entire damn industry.

" they get substituted by cheaper metals and substances some of which can at times be other RE's" - there isnt an electric motor that comes even remotely close to the efficiency of the ndfeb motor which is why demand has skyrocketed from EV's. EV car manufacturing is dependent on producing an equivalate power/range to the legacy models. Sure there is plenty of theoretical alternatives but none of them have seen any amount of production and we have had electric motors longer than the internal combustion engine.

@kanetoad $220m after the VML investment. Their target was $450m for the fund total.