One of Australia's biggest mineral sands firms, Iluka Resources, recently encountered a significant obstacle with its Eneabba rare earths refinery. Iluka originally possessed backing from a $1.25 billion loan from Export Finance Australia. However, growing costs have forced the project to request more money, bringing its anticipated expenditures to somewhere between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion. As a result of this funding stalemate, Iluka had had to place a number of important contracts on hold.