Australian Rare Earths

Australian Alternative Energy Forum


Not Really a Forum, more of my memory aid.


Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.


Go Back   Alternative Energy Forums > Alternative Energy Discussion > Australian Rare Earths

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 08-18-2009, 04:35 AM
Sparty Sparty is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,765
Default China further tightens Rare Earth Production and Exports

ARAFURA RESOURCES LIMITED (ASX: ARU)
18 August 2009

China further tightens Rare Earth Production and Exports

China’s central Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has published a draft report this week entitled ‘Rare Earths Industry Development Plan 2009‐2015’, submitted to the State Council for review and implementation in 2010, which outlines plans to further tighten Chinese administration of rare earth quotas in the latest publication.

Rare Earth quotas are to be tightened and a total ban imposed on some rare earths exports... read article

Get a quick overview of the issues

 

Disclaimer: The author of this post, may or may not be a shareholder of any of the companies mentioned in this column. No company mentioned has sponsored or paid for this content. Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.

Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 08-19-2009, 12:35 AM
Sparty Sparty is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,765
Default Another REEs story re Cina and USA struggle

Why the U.S. May Be Going from Dependence on Mideast Oil to Rare Metals from China

By Craig Canine, OnEarth Magazine. Posted August 18, 2009.


Rare earth metals, found mainly in China are the key to making high-tech gadgets, from hybrid car batteries to precision-guided missiles.


This story originally appeared in OnEarth Magazine.

Interstate 15 as it crosses the Mojave Desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is one of the most remote and desolate stretches of superhighway in the United States. Here and there, a roadside oddity -- like the world's tallest thermometer in Baker, California -- punctuates the endless sagebrush and sere mountain landscapes. Yet the most unusual landmark does not appear on any tourist map. About 15 miles south of the Nevada border lies the tiny town of Mountain Pass, California, where a cluster of low buildings and industrial equipment hints at the existence, just over a low ridge, of a gaping open-pit mine roughly a quarter-mile across and 500 feet deep. For decades after it opened in the early 1950s, this was the world's premier source of the metals known as rare earths -- a group of 17 elements with exotic-sounding names like lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium, and erbium. But the mine shut down in 2002, a casualty of environmental violations and plunging global prices. Today, this eerily quiet hole in the Mojave is the world's largest symbol of a brewing crisis, as the United States and other developed countries risk trading their addiction to oil for a new form of energy dependence.

Rare earths are essential ingredients in a host of high-tech gadgets, including automotive catalytic converters, air-bag sensors, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, and precision-guided missiles. Although they are produced and used in tiny quantities, rare earths and a few other obscure metals such as indium and gallium are also essential ingredients in virtually every sustainable energy technology. Lanthanum, for example, is required to make nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, which are used in hybrid cars. Energy-efficient fluorescent lightbulbs contain small amounts of both yttrium and europium. "Super magnets" made with neodymium form the heart of compact but powerful motors and generators like those used in wind turbines, today's hybrid cars, and tomorrow's plug-in electric vehicles.

At the cutting edge of science, physicists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology announced last year that they had discovered a new class of superconducting materials containing iron and rare earth metals. These materials break many of the supposed rules of superconductivity and could lead to a new generation of motors, generators, and power transmission lines through which electric current would move with frictionless ease, yielding massive energy savings.

Economically viable concentrations of rare earths are known to exist in only a handful of places -- mainly in China, Australia, and North America, with smaller deposits in India, Brazil, Malaysia, and South Africa. China's reserves, which are located mainly in Inner Mongolia and in soft clay ores in southern China, are, by a wide margin, the world's largest.

Realizing their strategic significance, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said in 1992, "There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China." He clearly understood the West's growing dependence on rare metals for high-tech industries and put China on course to become the world's dominant supplier. By flooding the rare earths market in the 1980s and 1990s, China caused world prices to drop by half, putting other producers -- most prominently, the Mountain Pass mine -- out of business. Today, China covers more than 95 percent of the global demand for rare earths, and the United States relies on imports for 100 percent of its supply.

Having shrewdly positioned itself as the OPEC of rare earths, China is now putting the squeeze on foreign consumers, clamping down on exports by raising tariffs, lowering export quotas, and imposing production limits. Worldwide demand for rare earths is expected to grow by 10 percent a year, yet production has leveled off in recent years. Most of China's annual supply is now staying in the country as consumers there buy more cars and electronic devices. "Sometime in 2011 to 2012, Chinese domestic demand will surpass Chinese domestic production," says Jack Lifton, an analyst and consultant who specializes in what he calls the "technology metals" and advises mining industry clients developing rare earth projects in North America."This means no more Chinese exports of rare earths, other than in finished goods made in China that they allow to be exported."

While other countries have promising deposits, it will take several years for any of them to ramp up production. The Mountain Pass mine was purchased from Chevron Mining in September 2008 by a Denver-based group of private-equity investors. The new owners have resumed processing old, stockpiled ore to remove the rare earth metals from it, and they hope to resume excavating and processing new ore from the mine in 2011.

A large rare earths mining project at Mount Weld in Western Australia was put on hold in February when financing for a processing plant in Malaysia fell through. The owner of another financially strapped Australian project, at Nolans Bore, confirmed in March that it had raised some much-needed cash by selling 25 percent of itself. The successful suitor? A Chinese mining company.

A single three-megawatt wind generator (modest, as utility-scale wind turbines go) contains more than a ton of super magnets, more than 700 pounds of which is neodymium. A typical hybrid car, such as a Toyota Prius, contains around 25 pounds of rare earth metals -- mostly lanthanum in its rechargeable battery and neodymium in its drive motor. "The global annual production of neodymium, essentially all of which is mined in China, is today at an all-time high," Lifton says. "There is no surplus -- the existing demand uses up all that's produced each year. So to build more wind turbines and hybrid cars, you'll need more neodymium. Where are you going to get it?"

 

Disclaimer: The author of this post, may or may not be a shareholder of any of the companies mentioned in this column. No company mentioned has sponsored or paid for this content. Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.

Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 04-24-2010, 06:00 AM
paulmartin483
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I totally aware and agree with this law pass by china. The USA government know all this problem that involve in doing rare metal that is why it stop doing it, and japan have enough in their own country for 2 century. why do china have to sacrifice so much and get back so little is return.

 

Disclaimer: The author of this post, may or may not be a shareholder of any of the companies mentioned in this column. No company mentioned has sponsored or paid for this content. Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.

Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 04-25-2010, 03:52 AM
Sparty Sparty is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,765
Default

Have a peek at my last post... I think that the Yanks (USA) might not agree... sure makes it an interesting field to be invested in.

Personally I agree that China has a right to do what it wants with its resources and I certainly wouldn't want any other country telling us what to do here in Australia.

That the USA was out-thought by China on this issue seems to be apparent:

"There is oil in the Middle. East.there is rare earth in China". Deng Xiaoping (1992) especially as Xiiaoping's Quote was so openly circulated.

That same year, the State Council approved the establishment of the Baotou Rare Earth Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone. During his 1999 visit to Baotou, President Jiang Zemin wrote, "Improve the development and applications of rare earth, and change the resource advantage into economic superiority." Then President Jiang repeated the strategic importance of developing China's rare earth industry, which has caught worldwide attention.

 

Disclaimer: The author of this post, may or may not be a shareholder of any of the companies mentioned in this column. No company mentioned has sponsored or paid for this content. Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.

Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 12-06-2010, 01:11 AM
Sparty Sparty is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,765
Default Update on Rare Earth Resources

On a Resources per capita metric the world's richest REE country is by far and away Greenland with 4,890 contained tons for a population of around 66,000 people.

Australia is the world's second richest country and hosts both the world's richest Rare Earth deposit at Mt Weld, W.A. and the richest heavy Rare Earth deposit at Dubbo, NSW. http://www.australianrareearths.com/Known-REEs-resources-reserves

Of note Australian companies own both the Greenland deposit and those within Australia.

In two recent studies the USGS and European Union studies of mineral supply risk, REE rank highest as mineral raw materials of critical concern, given uncertain future supplies and their importance to advanced industrial economies.

 

Disclaimer: The author of this post, may or may not be a shareholder of any of the companies mentioned in this column. No company mentioned has sponsored or paid for this content. Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.

Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 12-06-2010, 01:13 AM
Sparty Sparty is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,765
Default What China says

These articles outlines aspects of REEs as currently viewed by China.
China Policy on Rare Earth Update: China further tightens Rare Earth Production and Exports
"The Ministry of Commerce of the People?s Republic of China released a dramatic cut in the second half of 2010 Rare Earths export quota. In total the export quota for 2010 was 40% less than the total export quota for 2009."
"This 40% reduction is a significant decrease in product availability for export which is likely to significantly reduce any remaining stocks in inventory through the supply chain outside China and put pressure on increasing prices. Below is a table setting out the Chinese Rare Earths export quota for foreign invested firms and local firms for the past two years.".....From Lynas Corp's June 2010 Quarterly Report

 

Disclaimer: The author of this post, may or may not be a shareholder of any of the companies mentioned in this column. No company mentioned has sponsored or paid for this content. Comments on this forum should never be taken as investment advice.

Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
china, export quotas, rare earth, rare earth elements

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 01:18 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.