Checking out the "competition"
None of us are really experts on developing a mine. Everything seems to take way more time that we would expect. I periodically take a look at the competition just to see if we are doing better or worse. My conclusion is we are the only one in North America that is even close to shovel ready.
Round Top and LaPaz-
These are both surface deposits which will minimize mining costs. However there is a lot more to the story. These are very low grade REE deposits. Their REE concentrations are well under 1/4 of Elk Creek and for some elements 10% of Elk Creek. LaPaz thinks they might produce Sc. There Sc concentration is 10% of Elk Creek. They will have to mine and process huge amounts of material. According to our BFS processing a tonne costs more than mining a tonne. In order to produce the same amount of product as Elk Creek they will need to process 4-5 times as much material. LaPaz has done very little work on how to process and refine. They have not yet issued a PEA. The people working on Round op are planning to use a proprietary ion separation process. They are building a pilot plant to demonstrate the feasibility of this. They cannot do a BFS until they get operating data from that plant.
Bear lodge-
They appear to be a long way from a BFS and seem to be making little progress. They plan to use some sort of propriety ion exchange separation process.
Bokan Mountain-
This is a very high grade REE deposit well above Elk Creek. They are working on a proprietary separation process that they call rapid SX. They are building a demo plant now. They have a PEA but are not close to a BFS. If they can get the refining process proven then they plan to build a REE separation facility in Ketchikan, Alaska. They plan to operate this with REE concentrates from other locations. They plan to have this up and running before they start mine construction. There are a couple of problems with these plans. The town of Ketchikan is on an island. There are no roads or bridges to it. Everything coming in or out is by ship or by air. The mine will be on another island that is 40 miles west of Ketchikan. There is no electricity or natural gas lines to the island. Everything comes in and out by ship or air. They will need to build their own power plant and ship the necessary fuel.
Elk Creek-
All major permits are in hand. There is a paved state highway adjacent to the site. Electricity and natural gas are not far away. Separation of the three primary minerals has been successfully demoed. It is standard proven technology that has been used for years. The REEs will be put into solution as part of processing the primary products. Elk Creek has a PEA, revisions, resource estimates and revisions and a BFS and updates. At this time it is not technically a REE project. I suspect that will change in the next couple months. The lab work needed to evaluate adding REEs is complete. Resource estimates are being updated. I predict we will have a revised BFS within the next 2-3 months. If that happens we will be the only North American REE project that has issued a BFS. We are not starting from scratch. We have a BFS, we need to revise it to add some products.
AI
