RE:Lanmodulin Approach?REO economics very obviously all about scale, nothing small is ever going to be competitive either OpEx, CapEx, or both, and the cost curve is due a steep drop as the scale of REO demand is just now getting to the volumes that monazite waste players have been waiting on.
In the case of Iluka they've been carrying this valuable resource at Eneabba on the books as a negative for nearly 30 years, waiting!
https://iluka.com/operations-resource-development/resource-development/eneabba
At the least, next year they will produce an equivalent 60% REE concentrate with a far better magnetics suite than MP for sale into China, at similar scale.
That will make all but the most exceptional hard rock resources look like dinosaurs, and that is absolutely nothing new, been calling it 5 years.