Whats up bud. I'll try and give you an overview so you start your own research. Have a bit of a perambulate through the posts here, there are some excellent contributors on this forum. Below are my own beliefs but dyor!!!!
"If I understand correctly like PLS ( Lithium) the bet is on the price of the REOs increasing." - the price of spodumene increased because of demand due to electrification. Specifically, power storage for EV's. The projected energy storage requirement of EV's alone far exceeds existing global lithium production capabilities. Although spodumene requires additional steps to produce the final product there are production lags to brine which I think contributed to PLS being right place right time. Not to mention their ability to scale up extremely quickly - spod is the 'Johnny on the spot' for car manufactures who know that the internal combustion engine is dead and need to move forward rapidly to be competitive.
"is there are shortage of rare earths?" - RE imho is in the same basket as Lithium. Lithium is the most efficient method of power storage for EV's and the market clearly caught on to this early. Rare earth permanent magnets motors are the most efficient motors to drive EVs, which imho the market doesnt understand. Elon and Tesla toyed with alternatives and settled on the perm mag motor. Most if not all of the EV's being made in china are perm mag motors. The reason being is that in order for EV's to be comparable to existing internal combustion cars they need to have the same performance and range. To date the only motor capable is a perm mag motor. All of the car manufactures globally have signalled a complete move to EV's by 2035 so there is a race condition to secure rare earth for motors or an alternative (if you believe that RE motors are also a critical component). The problem however is that china controls 80+% of the RE supply which has created security concerns.
"Trying to get my head around a valuation." - The entire market is struggling with this. The industry in all countries but china is still in its infancy and china have had 4 decades to get it right. You can see this by china EV sales %. Take a look at the EU and US car manufactures timelines for their EV transition, GE's holy grail wind turbine and the military applications. In regards to financials the closest ticker to VML is MP:NYSE who's model is identical (they sell mixed RE mineral concentrate) however 100% of MP's product is sold to Shenghe in China.
Side note* - MP's resource has formed with a significant amount of radioactive material. VML's has not.
MP Revenue below for those who dont have access.
Mar-21 Reported 42m Estimated 37m
May-21 Rep 60m Est 50m
Aug-21 Rep 73m Est 60m
Nov-21 Rep 100m Est 77m
Feb-22 Rep 100m Est 94m
May-22 Rep 166m Est 137m
Aug-22 Rep 143m Est 128m
Nov-22 Rep 124m Est 115m
VML Price at posting:
2.3¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)