Congratulations, that is a massive undertaking, now all you have to do is keep it updated and fill in the missing data !!!
Might I suggest that you start with those deposits that are currently scored at zero for Metallurgy, seeing as that criterion has your highest weighting, omitting it from a deposit's score obviously impacts that Projects final ranking significantly. Until then it might help to highlight those deposits for which you still have insufficient data? and perhaps also identify any deposits that are under Chinese control and so possibly may not contribute to the Wests future demand. You should probably also fix up the problem with 'Phantom' deposits like Roundtop and Browns range which are really polymetallic deposits with only traces of NdPr present.
Also, out of interest what do you consider when allocating a 'Deposit score'? Obviously, it is based on some measure of the "host" Country's Political, Corrupt, Legal or Legislative climate? ~ Is it fair to rank Australia as a 10 yet China and Africa as a 2 while Russia is a 4, I know where I would rather try to develop a new mine, and it is not in Australia or Russia.
Lastly, I cannot see any classification that takes existing or planned Infrastructure into account, cost of getting people, supplies, energy etc into the mine and the final product out to market are often major items to CAPEX, capable of holding even the richest deposit down. Tomtor, Tanbreeze and Nolans being classic examples of where Infrastructure costs will exceed Plant construction.
All in all this is going to be a very useful tool for Downstream Industry, Investors, Financial institutions looking for where to put their money.
Hi
@Fundamental
Thank you for all your support! It was a massive project we undertook to rank all the NdPr deposits. And we are def going to keep refining it, including any mistakes and suggestions.
We are def going to score everything on the list, and the reason we have not done it yet for the ones that are currently score zero are because of the following:
- The deposit is usually in the exploration phase and there was very little data or it was not worth relying on at this stage.
- Also remember that we are only looking at a Companies most progressed deposit (and if there are phases...the current phase.) So a good example is Northern Minerals (NTU), they have lots of deposits, but we focused on Browns (Wolverine), because this is the most progressed. But yes, we will start to put the data they do have for the other deposits into the rankings. But also remember that Mineralogy Stage is a big contributor to overall Mineralogy. And that is because the more progressed they are, the more certain we are about the amount of RE and cost to process the RE. Another example is Arafrua (ARU), that is currently trying to progress it's Nolans Phase 1. We have only included that in the ranking. But should they progress Phase 2 we would update the rankings based on that too.
- I did some testing with the ranking, and I don't believe the zero score would change any of the rankings in the top 30.
So to confirm, we will be looking at adding data about all the other deposits.
In regards to the inclusion or not of the chinese deposits. I would need to think of this more. I wanted to keep them in the rankings because it is my opinon that future demand is going to be much much greater than what is currently modelled. The use in robots (domestic, commercial, industrial and military)....is going to mean we will need china and ex-china supply. So i like to keep tabs on where global supply is currently...and when new supply comes online (and forecast to come online). My modelling (which we might be putting on the paid part of REEx called REEi (i is for insights)) has forecast supply (china and ex-China) and forcast demand....and there is a supply shortfall.....massive. So what do you think? Should we present the Chinese deposits seperately or include?
Yeah.....the Browns ranges are mainly HRE...but we have taken that into account in the NdPr Deposit size and Annual Production scores....i know they probably score a bit high in the Mineralogy sections (which is weighted high)....but they do/will supply NdPr. Do you think someone like Northern Minerals with their Browns deposits sits too high for the NdPr rankings?
So the NdPr Deposit Score is the amount of NdPr in the deposit. There are some assumption in there where data is not available. Like we have assumed a 90% recovery etc. But we also had to apply a log scale to make the scoring work. Otherwise depoists in Greenland etc. just smashed the others.
We take into account the deposit location under the Deposit Country (the score is actually under Deposit Score - which should probably be Deposit Country Score...but we had massive issues trying to fit it all into one page etc.) You are correct, we took into account a bunch of factors such as legal system, infrastrcutre, mining workforce (ie experienced) etc. etc. Having been to russia and knowing quite a few prople there, I would be happy to set up a mine there, but we focused on the average retail western investor, and what is thought to be safe...from a risk perspective. I think we have the balance about right. I'm unsure why you don't like Australia as a mining location...maybe it is the high costs here? But i think that is massively offset by all the other risks that are mitigated? Could you please provide me mroe detail? I'm interested in your thoughts on this.
Supporting infrastrure is def somthing I think we could add for a future ranking. I agree, places like Greenland are going to need billions spent to get the people, materials, product in/out and around etc. etc. For Arafura/Nolans, I actually disagree. Nolans may be in the middle of Australia, but the highway is only about 20km from the mine site, there is a pipeline that generally runs along the highway, staff will probably have the FIFO option, but they could also live in Alice Springs, and the transporation of materials is a factor, it is not massive. And the cost to truck up to Darwin...is not massive. And if Gina ever gets her wish for an 'iron dome' for protection of all Australia's mines....Arafura will have plenty of warning for when those missiles come flying ;-). (as an aside, the main reason for Arafura's massive cost are these contingencies.....sure, it is not the cheapest place to build, but the deposit is so 'economic' that it justifies it).
Did you think there was any other categories we should consider including?
I'm also trying to work out how to include other rare earth elements. For instance:
- Should we have seperate rankings for differnt REEs?
- Should we combine them (how would we do this? Maybe use a dollar value? ie HRE are worth more?)
One thing we really wanted to do with these rankings, is to distill the truely economic deposits/projects from the 'pretenders'/'lifestyle companies'. We have def started this, but I believe we can delve even deeper, to provide an even better tool for investors.
Thanks again for your thoughtful and considered response. Love to keep chatting and refining our work.
John
