I find it interesting that they announced this deal so early in Ioneer's project. This approach did not go well for Tesla and Piedment. I guess customers need to try to thread the needle between early commitment and the risk that goes with it. You'd almost think that they would need to ink multiple early deals with a total capacity greater than their anticipated needs to account for delays and/or failed projects. Surely the floodgates will open up on these types of announcements. 

So LAC has yet to sign any offtake agreements, but we know that they already have unannounced customers for all of their Thacker Pass project. I suspect that following Judge Du's decision we'll see movement on splitting the company, and only then we'll see announcements related to partnering and customers. I believe that the decision to split the company has more to do with their future partnering relationship than with satisfying terms for US government loans.