Iluka Resources Limited (ILU.AX): Postcards from a rare earth's refinery tour — Eneabba: Australia's RE processing hub

We visited Iluka's Eneabba rare earths refinery in Western Australia. Our key takeaways are: (1) construction is progressing well with the project now ~65% complete, reducing commissioning risk; (2) Eneabba benefits from an established brownfield location with access to key infrastructure including power, water, road, rail, port and reagents; and (3) we have become more positive on the refinery's ability to operate as a multi-feedstock processing hub beyond Iluka's own feedstocks. We continue to expect commissioning in 2027, first NdPr oxide production in 2028, followed by a two-year ramp-up towards nameplate capacity of 5.5ktpa NdPr oxide and 750tpa Dy/Tb oxide. We make no changes to our estimates or PO. Rare earths account for ~65% of our risked asset NAV and ~68% of steady-state group EBITDA. We maintain our Buy following the recent share price pullback and continue to see risk-reward skewed to the upside. One of our key concerns has been processing performance across varying feedst