Editor, Brian Truscott
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Maths can be a difficult thing, even if one has new batteries in his or her favourite Texas Instruments standby. We here at RareMetalBlog do our level best to provide you with intel and news from accredited and reliable sources. With that in mind, we filed our own 2012 REE Quota story yesterday (thank you, Graeme Irvine)
Continue reading "China's 2012 REE Export Quotas — Revisited" »
Monday, December 26, 2011
As the unruly gaggle (rockery? nest? troop?) of rare earth explorers march penguin-like toward hoped-for production, there’s an issue that isn’t often spoken about, but has real implications that revolve around this one idea - what happens next, folks? “The problem with rare earths and other critical metals is that there are too few operating mines worldwide
Continue reading "Can REE companies truly be valued, given the vagaries of the nascent sector?" »
Friday, December 23, 2011
A privately held, advanced-battery maker has taken another step along it’s capital-intensive path to profitability, one that kind of mirrors current machinations in the global rare earths space. Boston-Power Inc. raised $30 million this week from U.S., European and – yes – Chinese investors, as it continues to develop lithium-ion battery cells, blocks, modules and systems for
Continue reading "Boston-Power, Lithium-Ion Batteries and China's Magnetic Pull" »
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Another study, another warning about supply disruptions for a handful of rare metals. Which ones? Well, the US Department of Energy’s report, released today, reckons dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium and yttrium will be the issue facing clean-energy manufacturers in the years ahead. “The transition to a clean energy economy will create jobs, enhance our security and cut
Continue reading "Clean Energy — Will the REE Cupboard Soon Be Empty?" »
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
It’s the following kind of dichotomy within the rare earth space that makes REE investment so much fun, sometimes costly and oftentimes frustrating because of the lack of transparency and straight-up intel about what’s really going on in the sector, company by company. So. On the one hand, we have Anthony Alfidi, CEO and founder of San
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Another day, another use found for rare metals, this time with aluminum. No, not aluminum/scandium baseball bats. Not this time. UC RUSAL, the world’s largestaluminum producer, has announced that its Engineering and Technology Center – together with the Siberian Federal University (SFU) – has created a technology to produce aluminum alloys containing rare earth metals and transition
Continue reading "REE Applications Continue to Multiply While Supply Remains a Question Mark" »
Monday, December 19, 2011
Let’s start with a few chosen paragraphs about China’s Bayan Obo mine (some five kilometres across, pictured above), taken from a January 10, 2010 article that appeared in the U.K.’s Daily Mail newspaper: It looks like a scene from an apocalyptic science-fiction movie. High on the frozen plains of Inner Mongolia, giant trucks rumble across the floor
Continue reading "China's Pièce de Résistance: A Non-Quota Export Quota" »
Friday, December 16, 2011
Rare earth explorers could be in for a rude financial awakening as they try to secure off-take agreements for what they have in the ground, according to Matamec Explorations President Andre Gauthier. “Do you think any end-user of rare earths – based on how this market is evolving - would pay half a billion dollars cash for
Continue reading "Matamec's Toyota Deal Could Be the New Reality for the Rare Earth Sector" »
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Gradually, people are starting to put the two sides of the equation together – thorium and rare earths; two seemingly disparate sectors, the former an apparent salve for the maligned nuclear space, the latter a nascent sector in the west looking to challenge China’s dominance by creating a functioning rare earths supply chain for end-users. Rare earth
Continue reading "Thorium, Rare Earths - Two Sectors That Should Befriend Each Other" »
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
I think it’s time to give speculative credit where speculative credit is due – reluctantly and with the full realization that this could be some sort of YouTube video of a tragic car wreck in super, slow motion. Molycorp. The last five months have been somewhat wondrous in scale, when it comes to a corporate trying to
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
More evidence that journalists don’t know everything about everything, unlike the people reading their stories…. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ latest report, ‘Minerals and metals scarcity in manufacturing: the ticking timebomb,’ has garnered a fair amount of attention for all the wrong reasons. While the report’s title leaves little doubt about the subject matter, the press release announcing its release was
Continue reading "PwC makes 'rare' blunder — clearly, more rare earth R&D needed" »
Monday, December 12, 2011
Rhodia – now the French unit of Belgian group Solvay – is back in the news for something it does well – maintaining it’s position as the leading rare earths-based specialty chemicals producer. The conglomerate (and its Rare Earth Systems division) together with China Rare Metals and Rare Earth Co. Ltd. - a unit of China-based mining
Thursday, November 17, 2011
This should be interesting. Japan versus China. That’s new. Chinas clampdown on its rare earths production has alarmed trading partners led byJapan, whichintends to take up the issue at the Asia-Pacific Economic CooperationForum in Hawaii, according to media reports. That’s from the ibtimes.com. It goes on to say this: Tokyo has raised vital trading concerns regarding Chinas
Friday, November 11, 2011
November 11, 2011 (Source: Reuters) - Canada-based minerals and metals firm Pacific Wildcat Resources plans to apply for a mining lease within this quarter, for exploitation of niobium and rare earth minerals at its Kenyan mining project near the port city of Mombasa. The company said it has established a significant presence of niobium and rare earth
Continue reading "Canada's Pacific Wildcat Eyes Kenyan Rare Earths" »
Breaking down the coterie that’s known as rare earth elements means taking it a wee bit further than simply defining them as lights and heavies. Once you break them down into 15 or 17 separate components, it shines a light on some of the dynamics of the market and what China may be doing with the supply
Continue reading "China and a Game Called Supply and Demand" »
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Lynas is currently dealing with a Malaysian headache but now finds itself with a prickly thorn in its paw called Malawi, a landlocked African country that’s become a focal point for rare earths exploration. So much of a hot spot, in fact, that China is – vulture-like – on the ground, hungry, looking for something wounded, something
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Now we know why Molycorp keeps hanging around the Ames Laboratory down in Iowa – hoped-for new applications for the rare earth element, cerium. The U.S. Department of Energy’s national lab will receive $4.5 million in DOE funding to advance two more cutting-edge research projects at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies
Continue reading "Looking to Replace Neodymium with Cerium in the Magnet World" »
November 9, 2011, Washington (Source: USMMA) --On Monday, November 7, the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hosted a workshop for Congressional and Committee Staff led by members of the United States Magnetic Materials Association (USMMA). The objective of the session was to discuss challenges and opportunities in the U.S. rare earth industry. Representing distinct segments
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Few people outside the rare earth space noticed a new trade association pop up in Washington last month, one calling itself RARE, The Association for Rare Earth. That was 33 days ago. RARE’s Washington profile should climb considerably on Wednesday, when U.S. Congressman Mike Coffman announces his intention to create a Congressional Rare Earth Caucus. Why? Coffman’s
Continue reading "RARE Request Prompts Plan to Form Congressional Rare Earth Caucus" »
And so it begins – in earnest. Malaysia’s international trade and industry minister accused Lynas this week of “jumping the gun” and failing to engage transparently with residents living near its soon-to-be-complete Kuantan-based advanced materials plant. The locals oppose the project due to fears of radiation pollution. That’s according to a Malaysian Insider interview with Minister Datuk
Monday, November 07, 2011
November 7, 2011 (Source: ibtimes.com)--Chinas attempts to cementgovernment control overrare earthe exportsseemed to backfire asindustryhave dumpedinventory in the market, causing prices to crash fromearly highs of RMB 300,000 per ton in a matter of weeks. The pricetumbled to RMB 100,000 ($15,740) per ton in recent days in spite of ahaltto production ofChinas two biggest domestic rare-earth producers,
Continue reading "China's Attempt to Control Rare Earths Causes Prices to Drop " »
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Looking inward and what they see looking outward. Word of the day here is disconnect. China. Let’s take Hong Kong, Beijing and Turpan – yes, the latter name is a city. Heard of it? I hadnt either. It’s not a complicated thing; it’s just that a number of people - historically – have made the country mysterious,
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Bureaucracy: a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives. See any possible loopholes there? CDs, computer software, HD movies, umbrellas? The making there of? Okay. Here we go, then: Chinais on the verge of paperwork. Lots of it. Will it count or have any
Continue reading "Sign on the Line which is Dotted, Please" »
Monday, October 31, 2011
Quietly, but persistently, Japan pushes on, setting up alliances and working relationships that create a robust landing strip for the future. The country’s foreign minister, Koichiro Gemba, met with his counterpart in India over the weekend; the two agreed that a plan to develop potential rare earth deposits should be on the cards. The timing is good,
Continue reading "Japan, India Talk about Half-Lives and a Future REE Industry" »
Friday, October 28, 2011
President and CEO Peter Cashin, who is steering Quest Rare Minerals toward a 2016 start-up production date, operates with a few basic tenets firmly in mind: Non-binding agreements aren’t deals at all; they just confirm that a company doesn’t want to be tied to a deal and will jump when the next best thing comes along; Given
Continue reading "Strange Lake — A Quest for Rare Earth Success" »
Thursday, October 27, 2011
October 27, 2011 (Source: Bloomberg) -- The helicopter took off, the wooden city of Ketchikan slowly receded, and the mountainous rain forest approached. It was an unseasonably warm day in February 2007. Through circles of moisture on the windows the passengers watched the choppy gray ocean off the southern Alaska coast roll by underneath. In the back
It’s time to place bets on what China does with REE export quotas during the first half of 2012. Given this year’s machinations, there’s no reason not to expect a further cut or a revision in the quota, what with widespread curtailment of domestic production, falling REE prices but continued speculation earlier in the year that rare
Continue reading "Coming Soon to a Market Near You — REE Export Quotas 2012" »
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
October 26, 2011 (Source: Global Sources) -- Mainland China’s projects on new solar cells are focusing on the development of thin-film batteries to match the portability trend in electronics. Makers investing in RD plan to begin mass manufacture next year, while those that entered the sector earlier are undertaking expansion programs. One such endeavor involves the Hong
Continue reading "Thin-film Solar Battery Production to Commence in 2012" »
Now it’s Europe’s turn. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (Institute for Energy and Transport) has published a 164-page tome called Critical Metals in Strategic Energy Technologies. (http://goo.gl/L8n6g) Why? Well, that’s what joint research centres and institutes funded by government budgets do, don’t they? And this particular report has latched upon the novel idea that a shortage
Continue reading "European Commission Has a Go at Tackling Critical Metal Bottlenecks" »
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Another day, another company decides that rare earth recycling must be a core part of it’s business plan going forward. Nissan Motor Co. came out with a new six-year environmental plan (no chance it was ever going to be five-year plan), which will focus on the reduction of its carbon footprint, a shift to renewables and a
Monday, October 24, 2011
Perhaps President Obama will form yet another 12-member “Super Committee” to try and solve this latest riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma called rare earths. When Winston Churchill said something similar in 1939, he was talking about Russia, how its actions might revolve around just one thing: Russian national interest. The same could be said
Continue reading "I'll Take My Quotas Medium-Rare, with Some Chinese Cerium on the Side" »
An end product’s supply chain can be far reaching, with parts or all of the upstream and downstream producers sometimes getting hit at different times by economic forces. This appears to be happening in China’s domestic LED market, which has seen a marked fall-off in demand, according to the China Strategic Monitor. That’s hit pricing during the
Continue reading "LED Applications Growing, Will Only Lead to More REE Demand" »
Saturday, October 22, 2011
The term energy revolution sounds light and airy enough, but how do human beings manage to wrest electricity from the sea? Germanys largest offshore wind farm, a power plant surrounded by a hostile environment, produces 12 times as much energy as the worlds first nuclear power plant. While the REE world tries to figure out the state
Friday, October 21, 2011
Author Stephen Leeb - founder and chairman of the Leeb Group and Chairman of Leeb Capital Management – has published Red Alert: How Chinas Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life. The Leeb Group sent out a release on the event, of course. One chapter’s title: The Limits of Western Democracy in Dealing with Critical Problems:
Continue reading "REE Alert - the American Way of Life is Under Attack...." »
October 21, 2011 (Source: Mining Weekly) -- Molycorp, the biggest non-Chinese rare earths producer, said on Thursday it would bring production forward by three months at the Mountain Pass mine its refurbishing in California, hiking the capital cost by $114-million. In a presentation broadcast over the internet, CEOMark Smithsaid that despite a recent softening in rare earth
Continue reading "Molycorp: Rare Earth Demand Will Return with Lower Prices " »
The pieces of a rare earth puzzle are gradually coming together for GéoMégA Resources. The Quebec-based company announced Thursday it had signed a pre-development agreement for its 100%-owned Montviel Rare Earths Project with the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee)/Cree Regional Authority and the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi. This agreement is the result of a
Continue reading "GéoMégA Resources has a REE Plan Nord of Its Own" »
October 21, 2011, Moscow (Source: Reuters) --Russia, with as much as a third of the worlds rare earth deposits, will take at least a decade to develop them and step into the breach that has been created sinceChinachopped supply of the metals to the rest of the world. China controls about 95 percent of the market for
Continue reading "Russia Not Ready to Cover China Rare Earths Gap" »
Thursday, October 20, 2011
If one sits with a side-street view of the global brouhaha that is rare earth elements, a certain amount of perspective can be gained. If China is intent on disrupting rest-of-world markets, then it’s taking an incredibly short-term view of the situation. But history tells us that China doesn’t really work that way. Remember, now, it wasDeng
Continue reading "Welcome to the Era of the ‘Cross-border Commodity War’" »
October 20, 2011, Beijing (Source: ft.com) -- There’s a popular get-rich-quick story in the town of Ganzhou, the rare earths capital of southern China: buy rare earths, and hold. Though the strategy has lined pockets in Ganzhou for years, it is now being tested by a precipitous drop in prices for rare earths, 17 elements used in
Continue reading "China Tries to Reignite Demand for Rare Earths" »
October 20, 2011 (Source: Reuters) -- Molycorp is accelerating the start-up of its new rare earth processing facility in California, a move that will increase capital costs for the Mountain Pass project by $114 million, the company said on Thursday. * Early start up to boost 2012 production by 3,500 tonnes * Acceleration to cost additional $114
Continue reading "Molycorp to Open Rare Earth Plant Early, Ups Costs" »
October 20, 2011, Colorado (Source: Molycorp) -- Molycorp, Inc., the Western hemispheres only producer of rare earth oxides and the worlds leading producer of rare earth oxides outside of China, announced plans today to accelerate by approximately three months the initial start-up of its state-of-the-art rare earth processing facility, now under construction at Mountain Pass, California.Mark A.
Continue reading "Molycorp Plans To Accelerate Initial Start-Up of New RE Processing Facility" »
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The month of October is being good to Tantalus Rare Earths AG, with new assay results on its Madagascar property, today’s announcement it had entered formal joint venture discussions with China Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Foreign Engineering Construction Company (NFC); and that HSBC is now its financial advisor. “The joint venture will allow (NFC) access to a portion
October 19, 2011, Sydney (Source: ft.com) -- When Nick Curtis was invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos this year, there was one topic that political and corporate chiefs wanted him to address. How could the world guarantee a steady supply of rare earths, the 17 elements crucial for many of the electronics used in everyday
Continue reading "Lynas Plays Down Fears of China Rare Earths Plot" »
October 19, 2011, Fairbanks, Alaska (Source: alaskapublic.org) -- A meeting on rare earth minerals drew a big crowd in Fairbanks late last week. The state sponsored Strategic and Critical Minerals Summit brought together government, industry and research officials to discuss Alaska’s rare earth potential. The minerals are in high demand by technology industries for making everything from
Continue reading "Rare Earth Meeting Draws Large Alaskan Crowd" »
October 19, 2011, Beijing (Source: times.co.uk) -- Already the world’s largest producer of rare earth metals, China has turned its sights on the rich littoral clays of Madagascar in its bid to secure ever greater long-term access to the “technology minerals” used in everything from wind turbines to guided missiles. The move, which comes through a possible
Continue reading "China Looks to Madagascar and Tantalus for New REE Venture" »
October 19, 2011 (Source: USMMA) --This month, officials from the U.S., E.U., and Japan met in Washington to discuss China’s dominance of the rare earths sector and what can be done to address it. While America’s leaders seek collaborative, multi-lateral solutions to this issue, they would be wise to remember China’s dominance does not just threaten the
Continue reading "USMMA: REEs, Technology Transfer to China and How the West Is Lost" »
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
October 18, 2011, Almaty (Source: centralasiaonline.com) -- With worldwide demand surging, Kazakhstan plans to increase its annual production of rare earth metals (REMs) to 1,500 tonnes in 2012. The country has been the world leader in uranium production since 2009, and is now looking to gain market share after China’s reduction in REM exports. Related Articles Kazakhstan
Continue reading "Kazakhstan Steps Up Activity in Rare-Metals Market" »
October 18, 2011, Shanghai (Source: Reuters) -- Chinas Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech said it will suspend its smelting and separation operations for one month from Wednesday, in an effort to stimulate the market. Baotou Rare Earth, Chinas top rare earths producer, said in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Tuesday that the move was aimed
Continue reading "China's Baotou Rare-Earth Suspends Facilities for One Month" »
U.S. Congressman Mike Coffman (R-CO) is once again calling on the Pentagon to stockpile rare earth metals crucial to maintaining national security. “I support the procurement of such high-demand, at-risk rare earth materials to help fulfill Department of Defense (DOD) requirements and therefore reduce supply-chain vulnerability,” he said, in a letter delivered late Friday to the Defense
Continue reading "Coffman’s Win-Win Solution to the U.S. Rare Earth Imbroglio" »
October 18, 2011 (Source: coffman.house.gov) --U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) renewed his push for the establishment of a national inventory of rare earth materials in a October 14, 2011 letter to the Defense Logistics Agency Strategic Materials division after reviewing both a recent Department of Defense (DOD) interim report analyzing the military’s dependence on rare earth metals
Continue reading "Coffman Continues Call on Pentagon to Stockpile Rare Earth Metals" »
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