We are way more likely to increase recoveries than concentrate...

We are way more likely to increase recoveries than concentrate grade IMO.
Met grade/recovery curves are inversely proportional.
The higher your concentrate grade, the lower your recoveries an vice versa.
And most of the time, recoveries tend to drop like a stone when you go for high concentrate grade.

This would be an example :




The economical sweet spot is usually on higher recoveries rather than higher grades because at some point, recoveries drop way too fast for it to make sense.

For example, it makes more sense to have 80% recoveries and 60% concentrate grade than 60% recoveries and 70% concentrate grade.

That's because the difference in payability between a 60% and a 70% concentrate grade isn't worth it compared to the difference between 60% and 80% recoveries.

Recoveries are very important for project economics.
With 80% recoveries, you produce 33% more TREO than at 60%, while putting the same amount of ore through your plant.
Or another way to see it, is that plant and infrastructure needed to produce, for example, 30ktpa TREO, will be much smaller and cheaper to operate at 80% recoveries than 60%. Therefore lower Capex and Opex, better margins.

I don't know in details the intricacies of the Rare earths concentrate payability scale but if we achieve 60% grade and 80% recoveries, that's already an insane result compared to peers.