The first question you have to ask a mineral sands company is, "Tell me all about how you'll manage your radioactive process wastes."
The answer will be one of:
What? Don't know.
They're completely safe. I bet you didn't know that radiation from bananas blah blah blah ..... and traveling on a commercial flight exposes you to more cosmic radiation blah blah blah .....
Oh, we're talking to another party about processing our monazite locally and they'll manage the waste for us. All good.
Let's instead focus on how much we're getting paid for our concentrate by our Chinese buyer. And I bet you didn't know China's developing a thorium industry so there's a commercial opportunity emerging .....
Meanwhile LYC and HAS have given up trying to permit radioactive residues storage at their process plant sites near Kal and Onslow. Haul it back to your mine sites fellas! This is the WA Government wanting to avoid NIMBY.
The only solution I'm aware of outside China is Energy Fuels White Mesa site in Utah. Small capacity at present. A site which is permitted to process uranium feedstock and manage NORM waste.
Option 4 above will remain the preferred option for monazite processing for some time to come I suspect. Third party management in China. Unsure how that will continue to be received by auto and wind OEMs increasingly being driven by ESG obligations related to raw material supply chain transparency.
(20min delay)