View attachment 52887042 days in row - IMO this is what is worth keeping an eye on as it will be the largest tailwind in the sector in regards rare earth miners.
I hope to see further concentration and focus on downstream and recycling. Both of which have the potentially to have viable margins irrespective of raw REO cost.
Refineries and Separation facilities input costs is the REO concentrates. So if the price is low their third party feedstock price is low. i.e. The ones running in china and the like now are probably still making profits downstream whilst the mines not so much.
magnet recycling follows a similar principal. Though the published NdFeB scrap pricing is a little obtuse. As it's referenced as the price of the REO element from scrap metal. Which already has some basic flaws.... how can NdPr be 67.39kg/usd from scrap but 67.24kg/usd normally...
meanwhile Dy seems to have a 15% mark down from spot REO and then holmium from scrap is 40% cheaper. Gd the same, almost halve.
View attachment 5288728For those reasons i deduce that the above amounts aren't a sourced price usd/kg for scrap magnets. And they are Simply the going price of the separated REO which are sourced from scrap.
i.e. to buy Nd/Pr which comes from recycled magnets is on parity with stuff produced from a mine and refined. to buy Dy/Tb/Ho/Gd from recycled materials it's a little cheaper than sourcing it raw.
Magnet recycling is an effective way to decouple REO material out of the chinese supply chain. i.e. no matter where the rare material was sourced/mined from - a magnet recycle facility can process these and produce the REO materials. They are now effectively western sourced REO if they are facilities located in EU/US etc. Once more the magnet recycling are modular and you can establish as many of these across the globe as required. It's purportedly going to make up 40% of REO supply - not many commercial magnet recycling of REO occurring in the western world that im aware. To close the loop they need magnet makers though. Otherwise you still have to send the refined/separated material over to China to be turned into a magnet.
Anyways hopefully more to come in that space which has been in line with my comments for a while that in the future ixr would be known for it's separation and refining more than the mine. Post #:
65471263That's essentially how i view it. a 3 pronged approach and business model.
1) The mine (Makuutu) - maybe others in the future
2) Refinery/Separation (either as a toll processor or from a licensing perspective - ionictech)
3) Magnet Recycling
Hopefully get commercialisation on the second point shortly, and then again the third to follow.
if you've got 2 and 3 as a pathway you're de-coupled/de-risked from the REO price as you're now effectively a value add. You slap a 20% margin ontop of your input costs - the REO price and on sell. Exactly like the lithium conversion facilities in china producing the carbonate/hydroxide etc and on-selling.
SF2TH
(20min delay)