“Assorted rare earth products: Lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), DYSPROSIUM (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), lutetium (Lu) and scandium (Sc). http://www.rare-earth.jp/e/products/index.shtml

So they should be able to treat both Alkanes HREE s and LREEs – at least technology wise. Not sure whether their capacities are currently big enough; might require a joint venture plant with Alkane (same model as for the zirconium).

I look forward to all further coverage you may provide.

re: gold mine: Peak Hill, mentioned e.g. here on page 1:
http://www.alkane.com.au/reports/broker-media/brokers/20110602.pdf
“ALK operated Peak Hill from 2002-2006 for 152koz. Sulphide resource of 467koz exists below the pit. Potential source of cheap sulphur for DZP.”

“the higher concentrations have recently been achieved with further testing”
WOW. Wonder why they didn`t put out a NR … that does wonders to increase profitability even further …

@Gordon Clarke: a key feature of the Alkane process is that the minerals are not concentrated before processing. Ordinarily one might view this as a disadvantage, but it is not preventing Alkane from obtaining decent recovery rates AND they have the added benefit of not concentrating the naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) present – in fact, their process dilutes the concentration of NORM. Other companies developing these first-stage processing capabilities will probably use techniques and “modules” not dissimilar to those for the Alkane demo plant; but I’m not sure that they can definitely do it without concentrating the NORM present, as a byproduct of maintaining decent recovery rates.

@Omneya El Hussaini: do note that the materials are roasted at the same time as being leached.

@Positroll: I did not discuss a 1.5Mtpa processing scenario (since I was unaware of it until I read that the materials at that link) with Mr. Chalmers and he did not bring it up in our conversation. Seems to me that such a scenario would be a long way down the road. Mr. Chalmers did not mention obtaining acid from “an old gold mine of Alkane near by”, but then, I am not interested in gold mining and the subject did not come up :-)

As for the 70-80% HREO concentrate – yes, the first round of work did yield lower concentrations, but per my conversation with Mr. Chalmers and Mr. Manis, the higher concentrations have recently been achieved with further testing.

Minor quibbles:
– I would have liked to read somethig about the 1,5 Mtpa option discussed here http://www.alkane.com.au/reports/asx/pdf/20110527.pdf (even though they won`t start with that) …
– “In terms of producing H2SO4, the key reagent for processing, Mr. Chalmers said that Alkane would produce its own on-site” => one should add that we`ll get the material from an old gold mine of Alkane close by, with gold credits very likely during production
–

New to me:
“ANSTO has also been looking at using pulse columns instead of mixer-settlers as part of this process. These columns have been successfully used in the processing of other minerals. They don’t have distinct stages, and if shown to be effective, could result in a smaller footprint and potentially lower capital and processing costs.” Now that would be very nice …

“Alkane is considering drilling a 500 m hole just to see how far down the deposit goes. ”
Interesting. They must be very sure about financing to seriouly consider this … (instead of putting the money into gold / copper projects)

Important question:
“The complete cycle yields a …heavy REO concentrate that contains 70-80 wt% REOs.”
I seem to remember that in a report last month or so they posted a lower number (50%?) for the Pilot Plant as opposd to the earlier lab results. But said they were working on it. Does that mean they solved that particular problem? That would be huge …

And of course I fully agree with your conclusion …