dr looi on fb malaysia, page-3202

The limits on Concentrate import and production were rescaled after next to meet NEXT name plate volumes. NEXT nameplate capacity for NdPr is 7.2 KT / year. So 100% would be that Level. They have reached this volume several Times for a month but something always happens and they have never reached it two months in a row. I do disagree with you the rabid drop of covid combined with the rapid rise in vaccine rates I fully expect Manning restrictions to be lifted a lot of not Removed by end of month https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/malaysia/

Unfortunately I do not think this will help production rates much AL clearly told us Covid related shipping problems in Singapore is causing concentrate problems at Lamp. When you read about Lynas the volumes sound large but in fact they only have a few shipping containers at a time. Here is AL Q3 statement.

Amanda Lacaze

Really, it's primarily associated with some of the challenges that we have around logistics at present and particularly related to getting concentrate shipments from Mt Weld to cross to Malaysia on a predictable basis. So we normally like to carry between about 15 and 20 days' stock in front of the plant. And we've found it very difficult to sustain that. At one stage, I think that it's worse. We had something like 32 shipments on the water, which had been rescheduled up to 6 to 8x each. So it's -- and this is just a direct consequence of some of the issues associated with COVID, congestion in the Singapore port, et cetera.

And so primarily that -- the concentrate issue sort of guides us, but of course, it's also related to other inputs. And so we sought to increase inventory on the shore so that we can continue to operate at our target levels. But what we don't want to do is to ramp up production and then find ourselves needing to shut the plant down because we don't have sort of inputs because the plant is running well and in very stable operation. And it doesn't like being -- like any clinical plan, it doesn't like being turned on and off.

So really, we continue to really focus on doing this, and we've put a lot of stock on the water to try to really sort of build that stock. But we are finding just ongoing challenges with getting -- we're not like sort of the big iron ore miners with our own sort of charters. We need to find space on ships for containers, and yes, it just continues to be a bit of a challenge.

Not a word in either Q4 CC or AR CC about this being solved. JMO but no news is bad news.

This is just one excerpt I encourage you to read the whole Q3 transcript. I think right now Revenue of over 50 % of the companies I hold will be effected by shipping problems in Singapore or other ports. So I watch this area closely. Singapore is much worse than when AL did Q3 CC Just compare new covid cases from then till to day and they are still rising. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/singapore/ Near Zero at time of Q3, 3800 a day to day. This is a world wide problem I have no idea if this will put us into a major correction but it could. Here is an article from today New York times. about problems in shipping in US.
https://news.yahoo.com/nearly-80-000-shipping-containers-122235646.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall