Annual Report to shareholders
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Annual Report to shareholders
I would like to take this opportunity, with the release of our annual report, to reflect on the year that's been and to present our vision for the future and to thank the shareholders past and present for their support - most particularly the ones that have stuck with this business through challenging macro and microeconomic environments.
During this year, the rare earth prices, to which we are most heavily leveraged, have seen a significant drop from their US$150+ per kilogram NdPr highs of 2022 down to the current mid to high US$40/kg range. This challenges all projects and is well below incentivisation pricing and most indications suggest a return to over US$100 per kilogram in the next few years. Just lately, indications of recovery have started to come through with recovery sustainability being the key question.
Thankfully we have considered our primary engineering project, Cummins Range, as both a phosphate and a rare earth project and so we are now taking this opportunity to find an exceedingly low cost phosphate startup for this longer term rare earth project. We do this against a backdrop of good progress at Cummins Range. Progress on de risking the supply chain to the port of Wyndham, on defining the resource, on advancing the offtake process and on progressing our relationships with the native title groups. We have pushed our mining agreement forwards with the heritage and environmental components and baselines now largely complete.
This year we also reflected on the broad risks associated with single project orientated businesses and from that we began developing a pipeline of inorganic growth options. The first milestone of this was the acquisition of the Khaleesi Project in the East Yilgarn which has fantastic indications of a rare earth - niobium mineralised system as well as showing a considerable opportunity for base and precious metals.
The package of tenements at Khaleesi are being processed into their 'granted' status, including with one of the most expeditious heritage access agreements with the UUNAC, and we are planning a significant and high impact drilling program in the near future.
The inorganic growth opportunity of the business does not stop with Khaleesi and we have refined our search criteria, are evaluating projects and have some specific targets into which we are putting significant effort.
Part of business development sees us take a position in Saudi Arabia which we see as geologically fascinating and a real emerging mining jurisdiction with the strong geology augmented by a strong, financially backed, intent to establish a mining industry ecosystem similar to Australia. We are working with the public tender process and in parallel forming a position in country to work on projects that are not in the public space.
We have also begun working with advisors Hunter and Co, partly on a particular target and partly as part of broader business development to bring in projects from further afield that are in a more advanced status than we might otherwise have access to.
This year also saw some changes in the leadership of the Company and I have been fortunate enough to have been entrusted by the Board to lead the company as CEO and now subsequently Managing Director. My objective is to be very transparent with the direction of this business, even when times can appear tough, and I encourage, welcome, and have set up systems to facilitate, a strong interaction between shareholders and the Company.
I'm very much looking forward to RareX engineering a very efficient startup for Cummins Range; I'm very much looking forward to our first high impact drilling program at Khaleesi which will go through the cover sequence that was the limit of most previous work and into the host rock where we see signs of mineralised carbonatites and deep plumbing systems cutting through; and I also look forward to what our business development activities can deliver for our shareholders on top of the current portfolio.
James Durrant Managing Director
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