It does, and its the same for any resource/reserve,
Lynas is one of the few that did it themselves and got off the ground, banked profits and can now self generate further expansion with their own capital, which is really rare.
Most companies require strategic capital from downstream vertically ingrated deep pockets, only to guarantee supply chain as a derisking (tronox for example in mineral sands, vertically integrated)
This strategic partner is probably what will get a project like Hastings off the ground, but who in the world except china, wants to guarentee the Capital for a project that maybe not give a financial return? Maybe the Pentagon and Euro but thats about it right now, so that maybe their golden egg.
Going off topic,
The real issue with all these companies including Lynas, is how to deal with the U/Th waste, like in mineral sand Zircon that contains also Monazite which is normally blended back into the tailings, however Iluka accidently stockpiled this probably for years, and now uses it as a REE resource. so again this U/Th will be interesting with Iluka / Lynas if they can deal with the insane Australian Goverment U/Th handling and disposal blockades that they must overcome for Monazite processing in australia.
Rare earth Monazites and Mineral sand Monazite Zircon has very similar downstream problems still seem to be dealt with in poor countries with no U/Th protocal that just throw it in the garbage, because Australia wont take on its own waste removal, just like shipping plastic bag to china, they save the fun U/Th removal for poor countries like Indonesia for high U/th Zicon (monazite) processing.
Hopefully the Australian goverment takes resposibility for mine waste disposal locally, if this could happen then besides labour and energy costs, more processing could happen in Australia and not just be a dig it and ship it country,
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