 Trump should see how lucky he was not to sign that accord with Zelinsky!
REE production in UKR is a pipe dream - I've read an article in French which itemises
why - principally a 150 year payback if/when the project is up & running, & the fact that most of it is in the Donbas!!!.
For anyone francophone, here it is from a good French financial media/TV channel:
hxxps://www.bfmtv.com/economie/international/ukraine-pourquoi-l-accord-sur-les-minerais-ne-rapporterait-pas-les-sommes-prevues_AV-202503010150.html?at_medium=email&at_emailtype=retention&at_campaign=NL_BUSINESS_ECO&at_creation=BFM_Business
He'll be far better off funding RBW with an offtake contract.
Trump only thinks in money terms - his grasp of geopolitics is abominable and hopes for a Nobel Peace Prize should rest on a permanent solution to the Palestinians' plight (fat chance!), not making supposed deals with Putin. Anyway, that spat gave the US an opportunity to play its' favourite trick - create chaos and destruction, aka war, and then walk away from the mess it created, scott free, or worse still, "confiscating" (aka stealing) the target country's dollar sovreign funds.
Ask Iraq & Afghanistan just in recent history, let alone Viet Nam with agent orange....
Hmmm... With friends like that.... |
Thank you archie. |
As ever I am having difficulty opening the link posted by luffness. Help please.
I am not worried about the minerals (if any) available to USA in Ukraine. They would still have to be mined and then processed; that takes time.
My concern centres on the delay in completing the join up of equipment (front end to back end) in SA and in perfecting the purity of the conversion. The company has already put back the start of production to end 2027 - delay does not help investors although I take on board the speed at which from start to present Phalaborwa has developed compared to the average mining project. |
Good 1, luffness |
Well nice and stable today so far, so probably just a few sellers getting impatient yesterday |
Thanks luffness, another individual (Javier Bias, Energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg) saying Ukraine has rare earth mineral resources is just nonsense to quote. |
https://x.com/javierblas/status/1894514608905306542?s=46&t=ug9qDLMNERuMFhW_Se-MBw |
Listened to that Jack Lifton interview, also checked the ISW web site for that diagram used in that BBC article and couldn't find it anywhere. Key point Jack is saying is there are no rare earth "resouces" in Ukraine. That diagram in the BBC article if true is only indicating raw deposits that haven't even been explored yet to even get to the first stage "inferred resources" under JORC rules. AS he said, even if they somehow went ahead and developed rare earth targets in Ukraine they would not come on stream for many years (grand children mentioned at one point). He pointed out the USA should be looking at developing other areas where mining is happening or resources known. Canada seems one area he was keen to highlight and current operations there. He has offered to help as the "experts" but nobody is contacting them.
Marktime1231 your comment on G20 yes highlights what feels like turbulent times as stances and comments are made. Fundamentally it's those who are delivering refined REO that counts in the end and outside of China. So when the "noise" dies down and reality takes effect, I'm comfortable where RBW is and lets not forget RBW has prospects in Brazil and what seems soon to be Canada as well (waiting for something official to be said rather than video reference to some work due to come in), both being locations Jack Lifton mentioned as alternatives to Ukraine. I also notice that "Swalwell and Reschenthaler Introduce Bill to Incentivize American-Made Magnets 24th Feb 2025" does not include South Africa as a location to exclude any source material , those excluded being "China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia". Not sure how that will work if 90% of refinement done in China for world supply?! Lots of posturing going on right now I think! |
The slide here may have more to do with the US shunning South Africa at the G20.
Someone needs to come up with a "very great deal". Conjure up a map, mark it in several places with an X labelled critical minerals. Otherwise we might lose TechMet support. |
Is Trump gonna buy a pup? Renowned Critical Minerals Expert Jack Lifton Says There Are No Rare Earth Deposits in the Ukraine.
But WTFDIK? |
Of interest John Omerod points to ...
Swalwell and Reschenthaler Introduce Bill to Incentivize American-Made Magnets
24th Feb 2025
The bipartisan bill creates a $20 per kilogram production tax credit for magnets that are manufactured in the United States, or $30 per kilogram for magnets that are both manufactured in the United States and for which all component rare earth material is produced and recycled or reclaimed wholly within the United States. To be eligible, the rare earth magnets may not include any component rare earth magnet material produced in non-allied foreign nations such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. |
Well something made today a bit of a sell day today, be it 570K of trades is not exactly a big day, so to be taken in perspective.
The USA-Ukraine mineral deal if signed (but now expected) and if it is impacting RBW sentiment is potentially being miss-reported then. Its a "critical minerals" deal for which rare earths are only one category of elements. An article by the BBC at gives a useful overview of the overall picture.
A key statement relevant to RBW is "rare earth deposits are known to exist, but none of them have yet been mined, because of a lack of investment" In other words this is starting from scratch prospects taking many years to get to any raw output production. Some of the RAE deposits are also located in Russia controlled territory so not even open to any agreement as things stand right now.
The article also states "According to the World Economic Forum, Ukraine has about 20,000 mineral deposits covering 116 types, but only about 15% of sites were being actively exploited at the time of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022" Also "Developing these mineral resources is extremely difficult and expensive, according to Iryna Suprun, chief executive of the Geological Investment Group, a mining advisory firm based in Ukraine. She argues that if Ukraine can attract US investors to help develop its natural resources, it will be highly beneficial for the country's economy."
So while in the news it seems the USA is putting pressure on the Ukraine, Ukraine would need a development partner anyway for many years to come to extract a whole range of minerals from their natural resources. Titanium for example is one area already with mining facilities in place, see for example.
So the Ukraine situation is really about a wide range of mineral deposits under the correct title "critical minerals" and none of the rare earth potential sources have even started to be exploited to the point of development yet.
The USA is certainly going for locking in exclusive rights to those resources as a "minerals grab", but the impact on rare earths is much smaller and a long way down the road. Phalaborwa will be well into its production lifetime before even some of those rare earth deposits could be extracted.
So today may well have had an element of the USA-Ukraine deal impact (but not really valid), however archie222 comment may be more of a likely source and one of those days where the price drop acts as a catalyst for some investors to sell.
Some impatience on timeline visibility I suspect myself. Short term, its key for RBW to get the front and back end processes operating as a single facility at Mintek and get the results published. |
Don't think so if you look at the USGS survey for last year UKR doesn't have any RE resources worth talking about.
More likely to do with mgt's newly adopted "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" playbook.
[EDIT]
I should add that I'm not against sliding timescales when it comes to the removal of RE impurities. This dark art seems to be at the heart of RBWs offering and occurs prior to the (CIC) separation. DD seems fairly confident of the success of the final CIC REO sep stage. Success in this pre-final step is likely to help with enabling the extraction of REs from Morocco's enormous PG stockpile (which has about 1/2 the Nd/Tb/Dy content of Pb). |
I guess the huge Ukraine minerals deal is having an effect here with concerns that the appetite for US funding may diminish. Hmm |
Looking ahead a bit :-
drone deliveries by Amazon in US
2,000 in 2023
2,000,000 forecast for this year (2025).
Impressive growth for 2 years. A lot of Amazon delivery drivers are going to be looking elsewhere for jobs, I think.
EVTOL Transport (US)
4 commercial licences for this year.
LA Airport > San Diego - 8 min trip vs 1.5 hours in a car
"for the same price as an Uber black"
Ok, GB is obviously going to be looking for flashy numbers wrt the demand for pMagnets/ mRare Earths. But the chances of saving / making considerable amounts of money in these areas look promising.
Security of supply, as an issue, will likewise increase as a result, and perhaps the desirability of offtake deals. |
And don't forget the the plan at Uberaba seems to be to utilise gypsum from ongoing processing and not even touch the existing stacks until production winds down in however many years... |
Yep a delay is always frustrating for long term investors in particular, but timescales to actual production were bound to move out when RBW decided they could not operate 2 separate plants to get to the 99.5% purity target. While they could have a commercially viable product at lower purity, it is clearly worth the extra effort and integration of plants to get to the higher grade and so value. We are still working with a new extraction process here, there is no absolute guarantee on timescales. Sound like they still need to complete setting up and integrating the plant shipped over from the USA at Mintek premises, then need to run and optimise to get to 99.5% so that's time. But as already mentioned it will be a major catalyst milestone when announced.
Notice in that interview archie222 posted, GB also mentioned Uberaba which from the previous Investor Meet presentation and Q&A, is getting close to announcement it seems. But what was new is the mention of an expectoration of a 40 year life versus 16 years at Phalaborwa. We are nowhere near finalising commercial arrangements for a JV or whatever joint arrangement is put in place (I presume 50/50 for now), but it's the first indication of how larger Uberaba could be in the future. |
It seems pretty likely that we'll just have to wait for confirmation of the company's ability to reach the target grade and then publication of a final (positive) feasibility study before most investors will be prepared to pile in here. The slippage in the timeline has been unfortunate but understandable (and hardly unusual). There will always be macro risks but the company is well managed and promoted and has enormous potential imo. |
Last quarter 27 is almost 28. Later than I had hoped. |
Interesting, bbd2, but I hope they're wrong about this:
"Rainbow is projecting that the construction phase will cost about $326.1 million between 2026 and 2027, and that production will start in the last quarter of 2027."
Pfff.... Timeline gets stretched out to end 2027? Started as 2026!!!
However : "The projected net value of the Phalaborwa project stood at US$611-million as of December 2024", mkt cap c. US$100M.
I thought capex = c. $300M & payback = $100M/an.
Uberaba is 4x Phal, but on what capex? Still, it appears our prod tech is lowest prod cost worldwide.
However, we need to get to 99% purity for top mkt prices (which are rising) and I'm still waiting for that.
SP might rise then & support an offtake deal over 5 yrs. to fund plant build... |
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