The technology at Molycorp might be of interest to the Chinese. The deposit certainly is. No question why, either. Whether they decide to continue developing that technology or to ship concentrates home, they win.
Both basnaesite and monazite concentrates can be cracked with sulfuric acid. I'm not saying Mt. Pass concentrate is a drop-in for Mt. Weld concentrate. Only that there's enough overlap in processing them that such a large deposit might easily make any necessary capital expenditures feasible and attractive for the LAMP.
The long-term-thinking Chinese bought Mt Pass for the magnet metals: now including La,Ce,Nd,Pr. Shenghe is everywhere, leveraging what they know, what they know is worth learning. REE-based PMs are here to stay for decades, possibly centuries.
Hopefully the updated resources show a long LOM at Mt Weld rendering this discussion moot.
Hopefully the AP ore can be economically processed and extracted with minimal capital expenditures at either Mt Weld or the LAMP.
Same for the underlying primary carbonatite, though I don't think we'll see much about that. Have yet to see any drilling results at all, IIRC.
Any idea when resource update is expected?
GLTA
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