Proposed US bill, page-8

A JV can be a lot of things and it beats nothing by a mile if the JV is done right.Lynas's current solvent exchange is 100% in Malaysia; Texas could be operational in 3 years at the very best; 5 years more likely; maybe never is still in the picture.

We have 4 more years where Japanese magnet-makers have to make due without a source of ROW Dy. This is not a good situation at all given the massive magnet-making production capacity increase JL MAG has on tap. Until Lynas (or any other ROW refiner) is producing mass production Dy and Tb for upgrading magnets to the high value high power high temp apps, keep some expectations in check.

Lynas can move towards smelting and alloying and that is my hope; but that is still a long way and a lot of work from magnet-making.

Hitachi Metals possesses the IP for sintered aka fully-dense aka the most powerful (Dy-)NdFeB format which would put any owner on the map and I thought wtf when they put the unit on the market. If Japan actually allows the sale (Hitachi has been at the forefront in the epic multi-decade attack by State-sponsored Chinese patent-breakers), it would amaze me, but it could happen.

US Bain Capital is in talk with some consortium of Japanese that would somehow continue to protect themselves by retaining part ownership of Hitachi Metals with Bain. I did not and do not truly expect the sale to happen; I have always said it was unbelievable to me and now - as of Dec 2021 - the deal has run into "regulatory difficulties".

I think something big in the magnet world must happen or China will have an highly effective, deeply-moated and lucrative monopoly on greening the globe, because that is what rare earth magnets are all about. But there's no CCP in the USA and nobody can actually force any individual or corporation to make it happen. Fun time to be an investor that can handle a bit of risk as the Green Revolution continues to disrupt.