scoping study numbers out dated, page-29

Bzzzzzzt. Codswallop. Absolute and utter tripe. I'd use certain other words, but the moderators would pound me into a pulp. So instead, I'll also make reference to "drivel", "gibberish", "balderdash", "baloney", "bilge", "bunk", "hogwash", "hooey", "poppycock" and "trash". (I have a thesaurus, and I'm not afraid to use it.)

That 56% you refer to isn't a recovery rate. It's the purity of the carbonate. In other words, the mineralisation starts off with 5.35% REO; the concentrate after magnetic separation and flotation is 17% REO; the carbonate after the acid leach and purification is 56% REO; and the end product, after SX separation, is 99%+ pure.

There is nothing in that document to support your assertion that only 56% of the mineral is recovered. In fact, that document says nothing about how much rare earth mineralisation is thrown away during the process. In actual fact, the recovery rate is significantly closer to 80% (see below.)

Second piece of tripe: discounting the NTU basket price by 5% "to eliminate the 5% lights". That assumes that the light elements make up 5% of the value. They don't. They make 5% by volume (or perhaps by weight.) The value proposition may be more, or less, than 5% (I'd tip less, but that's without checking the details.)

Now, if you look at the beneficiation announcement from March, you'll see that the optimisation process pushes out 53% of the original mass, whilst recovering 86% of the rare earths. This means that the feedstock for the next step is increased in concentration from 5.3% to 9.7%. Greater concentration means less purification work, means less need for sulphuric acid, means lower cost. Sure, we lose 14% of the mineralisation - but we gain a lot more (economy wise) than we gain in that process - we lose revenue, but also lose processing costs along the way, and the latter outweighs the former. (There may be more losses in subsequent steps, but I'd expect them to be very minor; I can't be bothered digging up the announcements. Your mistake. Your homework to fix.)

And no, you don't get to discount the basket price by 86%. The basket price represents the value of the end product, after all the rejection, concentration, and purification steps are taken into account.

Final mark: fail. Go back, and do it again. Or better yet, don't. I've had enough of your twaddle.