Any company looking to do something with this project will team...

Any company looking to do something with this project will team with Ioneer. There won’t be a takeover of Ioneer. As difficult as it is to understand, Ioneer is in a stronger position now than when Sibanye were potentially going to be involved. What would happen if Sibanye went bust half way through construction of the plant? Ask yourself.
Ioneer, needs a strong and well established partner to see this project through to processing.
The DOE has provided the debt funding to Ioneer, not Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto can’t simply take over Ioneer and retain the exclusive agreement that has been made between them and the DOE. The interest on the debt being offered is lucrative for any company, let alone Ioneer and the DOE has run there numbers to ensure the economic viability of the build prior to increasing their loan size. Rio would be smart to team up with Ioneer and hopefully take advantage of what will be valuable and economic investment metrics.
unfortunately, there’s additional time involved in finding the right partner, which may not be RIO. There’s a lot of large mining companies in the world who may want to be involved in this project. Hopefully there’s more than one, and Ioneer can negotiate the best terms possible on behalf of all shareholders. All IMOP DYOR