The inconvenient truth is Yangibana is just not a very good orebody with one of the lowest TREO grades of any R.E. project. Lynas' Mt Weld has almost 6x as much NdPr as Yangibana, and Mountain Pass has 3x the amount of NdPr as Yangibana. In fact, HAS has less NdPr than just about any project in their own peer comparison:
This leads to HAS having to move huge amounts of ore resulting in higher operating costs. Opex of $190m pa to produce just 3,700tns of NdPr Oxide is pretty poor economics. HAS using of an average NdPr Oxide price of US$121/kg (double current prices) in their financial forecasts is just a joke. Imagine if a potential gold producer put up a forecast of US$5,000/Oz to justify their project - they'd be laughed out of town.
Can HAS obtain the necessary project funding at current NdPr prices? The experience of the past 2 years suggests that's unlikely, otherwise they would have done so already. No wonder Twiggy is nervous.
(20min delay)