Answering this post in a little more detail, do I expect rare earth prices to explode? No, not really expecting a rare earth price explosion across the board sometime soon. Check up Adamas Intelligence if you want some more detail they've got more info than me. However, on a risk basis, should Myanmar end up with some hick-ups, or Chinese clay deposits start to dwindle (as they are) then projects with a basket that is closest to what the market is loosing (i.e. Makuutu, double u's by the way - at least care enough about your investment to spell it correctly) stand to benefit as the weighted pricing of the elements that IXR has would likely gain the most, thus why Dy and Tb and Y are quite important to IXR imho as that's a decent chunk what goes off the markets as the Southern Chinese clays progressively deplete).
Add on top of that the "please explain" that the European OEMs may start to get if they use magnets with materials sourced in Myanmar where there are shocking environmental practices and you've got a decent tonnage of material that will ask for a different source in the near future. The ESG considerations in that alone in particular if there ends up being penalties applied on Myanmar supply essentially then Dy and Tb prices ex china are likely to rise a fair bit. Remains to be seen exactly how the European ESG framework will be set up and executed though.
Will we have direct visibility of the ex-China pricing per element? Probably not, similar to as has been mentioned by others apparently there are murmors that as the current ex china prices IXR would still be viable, giving China explicit insight into what those prices are to your point give them insight that might not be advantageous, on the flip-side how bankable are those murky prices? Depends perhaps who the funding parties are. Does that mean the mine will go ahead without an increase in REE pricing? Unfortunately I don't have the insight to answer that but I'm comfortable with the recycling side's ability to scale to become a material and significant producer should the mine need to wait for pricing to increase. Thanks to the shallow depths drilling out the tenements or even acquiring further ground nearby for slow burn resource increase while REE prices are low is not a major impost in particular once there's a couple of recycling plants going. The company thinks more than 3 months ahead even if you perhaps do not. Would it be nice to pick up a project of the calibre of MEI or VMM generally speaking, sure, but they've now got quite an interesting toe in the door for a potential downstream JV arrangement in Brazil which is quite a decent project in it's own right if my tea leaf reading is correct. They don't need a random clay project somewhere, only if there's an outstanding opportunity should they pursue one imho.
There are other clay and hard rock projects around, MEI in particular has great grades but a different basket. Punters there in their near terms hopes of "$ before xmas" imho also haven't considered what is likely to be a more CAPEX heavy plant per tonne of feed (mind you the grade makes up for that) it still will be a not insignificant capital hurdle and take a fair while before they get ready to build and even then their product balance means even more Ce and La on the market although they've likely still got quite favourable economics overall.
Does my blurb suddenly put a rocket up the arse of the share price, probably not, lol.
Disclosure: I hold both IXR, MEI and VMM in the clay space.
(20min delay)