Don't want to wander off topic, but very few are following so let's consider the Gifford Ck RE-ironstone problems you raised... relatively small, low-grade REO deposits contained in skinny, pinch and swell lodes and all hard rock. Hard rock is expensive to mine, skinny lodes are high strip often suffer high dilution/oreloss, that all adds up to low tonnage, short life and lack of economies of scale. Below the supergene oxidised ironstones the fresh Fe-carbonatite contains siderite mineral HAS maps and excludes from the ore reserve because it's obviously deleterious to TREO recovery and mon-con quality in the bene plant.
The particular issue of size and economies of scale has not been much considered previously in the west because market size has never been there, nor the processing capacity to take advantage of such size economies. That's changing with Mt Weld as we watch, very similar to how mineral sand operations have got bigger over time, and the 'front-end' keeps increasing throughput as grade drops to match the 'back-end' concentrate production. RE-con from bene plant is analogous to HM-con in min sands, MREC hydromet plant is analogous to the mineral separation plant in min sands.
One of the competitors to supply the west with reasonably priced RE-oxides is Mt Weld, only just starting to grow out from it's long, embryonic gestation. The current MRE is approx 50Mt @ 5.2% TREO, though mining has so far been confined to the near-surface supergene zone going 8-10% TREO. Until now, expansions at Mt Weld have reached the absurdly small annual mining rate of 300ktpa. The current Mt Weld expansion is taking throughput up to 1.3Mtpa, for approx 44 year mine life and potentially trebling NdPr production (ie 4 x times throughput but lower TREO grade)
LYC new Kal hydromet MREC plant is rated at max 162ktpa mon-con feed, so it will be full from Mt Weld's 1.3Mt expansion for many years until grades drop enough that 1.3Mt only produces 162ktpa mon-con. But why stop there? With all the tech and experience, just expand the Kal MREC plant again and in time expand the stgill ridiculously small 1.3Mtpa Mt Weld bene plant again (and again, and again). The market might have forgotten how big Mt Weld is, like most carbonatites at depth you start talking 500M-1B tonne resources quickly. Last years deep exploration hole returned 550m @ 2.6% TREO and 0.62% NdPr from base of oxidised ore (from 62m).
Based on 1.3Mtpa Mt Weld is currently expanding to 12,000t NdPr in ~160ktpa mon-con, with potential to add another 50% NdPr from existing 1.3Mtpa bene plant. At 500Mt @ 2.6% MRE for example, they could double to 2.6Mtpa and keep supplying the west with 300ktpa mon-con feed for 200 years, or double up again to 5.2Mtpa bene plant at double the production yet again for another 100 years. look at the big porphyry copper mines for example, Cadia runs at 27Mtpa bene plant producing a Cu-sulphide concentrate... that's what you do with big deposits (so long as the market can handle the output supply).
Kind of puts HAS and their 29Mt over half dozen skinny 1% TREO ironstone deposits into perspective doesn't it
Still, GLTAH
(20min delay)