Daniel Rau
@drauwsy
Building critical minerals process technology | Chemical Engineer | Crescere Aude
Daniel's overall thoughts on lepidolite/lithium/China are well worth a read here but I think this is a really key point across the mining world: scale gets prioritized over time to production way too often. Maybe that's because of the Rick Rule mindset - "small mines have all the…
Mining investors are also to fault for this behaviour. After reading Craig Hutton's Mining Economics Explained, and then noticing the educational background and academic training of the BoD for a publicly listed ShitCo on the TSXV / ASX - one can easily deduce that this…
Unreliable energy advocates claim solar panels and battery storage are now able to deliver "baseload" power at a lower cost than coal or nuclear. But we ran the numbers in ERCOT, and solar and storage aren't low cost, they are the most expensive energy out there. A thread:
Someone is upset he wasn't the 3rd or 4th check into Rainmaker
Cloud seeding in populated areas seems risky. I do wonder if we should be doing this kind of thing at all.
If the wolves come out of the walls, its all over. A large trading house offering structured credit facilities for the Americas sounds more like: "I will prey on pre-production pain" debt-trap financing with a sharp macro view, rather than benefaction to building the western…
Oil trader Vitol is getting into the mine finance game. The mining industry needs more capital flowing to Western projects, whether that's venture capital or petrodollars. Though the biggest gap is in exploration projects (unfort. not the focus here). bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Great fella, go give it a listen.
Did my first one-on-one podcast! Tried to make sense of the rare earths story without going off the rails. Whether I pulled it off… you be the judge. Big thanks to @marketplunger1 for having me on.
The return of the triple digit DPI era @jakobdiepen
You know how much money @jakobdiepen is going to make from being the Gundo fund? Such an obvious bet that all the institutions fumbled
You can’t understand the Middle Kingdom without reading Arthur’s work.
Arthur Kroeber is a leading researcher on Chinese tech and macro, and author of "China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know." It's the most useful, detailed resource I've found of how China actually works. We discuss how China achieved high-tech manufacturing dominance, and…
Yes, and project studies should be geared to what you can *credibly* build and generate a rapid payback on. A KSM-style project does not work at a junior-level, and majors have more or less indicated that they aren't interested in them either unless they're generated internally.
Here’s a thought for juniors - build the mine! So many companies base their strategy on building ounces. After all it worked for Great Bear. That was the worst thing that ever happened to the junior sector because it comforted geologist CEOs in the illusion that if we find ounces…
I’ve been lucky to work with some of the best companies pushing the edge of American manufacturing at places that value persistence, innovation, and the pride of building real things. I’m excited to join the team at Durin as Head of Talent, where we’re growing the team while…
Durin has brought on an incredible Head of Talent, @mchl_mthws! Building the future of the mining industry requires the best engineers, drillers, and geologists in the world. We are hiring. LA HQ and Nevada field operations. DM me or Michael.
I’ve been lucky to work with some of the best companies pushing the edge of American manufacturing at places that value persistence, innovation, and the pride of building real things. I’m excited to join the team at Durin as Head of Talent, where we’re growing the team while…
No IAC deposits gets developed with the current cost structure of ion-exchange chromatography in the west. Pregnant leaching solutions post-floatation are in teens g/L, enabling cost-effective SX circuits. However, with dilute PLS solutions, mixer-settler circuits blow-out from…
Took a while, but my second Substack post is finally up. If you’ve been wondering why China restricted the rare earths it did, this one's for you... Link in comments & bio
Stellar explanation of recent Chinese REEs restrictions. Give it a read and subscribe while you’re at it!
Took a while, but my second Substack post is finally up. If you’ve been wondering why China restricted the rare earths it did, this one's for you... Link in comments & bio
For a commodity with as rosy a long-term growth story as lithium, an asset that will sit firmly in Q1 on a C1 basis with a 20+ year LOM is quite literally priceless. When $1B is a rounding error on a balance sheet, Rio Tinto paying $2B still would have been an extraordinary…
Went to dig into my old files for the Maricunga salar that $RIO just bought into. Phase 1 DFS was 15ktpa (88% batt-grade) at a capex of $626m back in 2022. Now RIO has committed to $900m capex + $350m for 49.99% stake. Someone tell me why Rio did this please. #lithium