From the category archives:

Rare Earths

Rare Earths Are Still Hot: Musings From Hong Kong

by Jack Lifton February 26, 2010

Rare earths are a “hot topic” in Southeast Asia. I’ve just arrived back from Hong Kong and Tokyo. In both cities I had private meetings with the clients of CLSA, a large Hong Kong based brokerage, which advises institutional investors.  I also spoke at the CLSA “U” Forum in Tokyo where that company brings together [...]

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Shortage Of Rare Earth Elements Could Thwart Innovation

by Admin February 16, 2010

by Jeremy Hsu – LIVESCIENCE – Published: Feb 16, 2010
Silicon may represent one of Earth’s more common elements, but it transformed Silicon Valley into a high-tech corridor and helped usher the world into the Information Age.
Now rare earth elements with exotic names such as europium and tantalum hold the key to hybrid cars, wind turbines [...]

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Going For A Rare Find

by Admin February 11, 2010

by Larry MacDonald – CTV NEWS & THE GLOBE AND MAIL – Published: Feb 11, 2010
The Big Picture
The rare-earth elements – supply and demand have “a wild dynamic.”
Introduction
There are 16 rare-earth elements on the periodic table. Many of them, particularly neodymium, dysprosium, lanthanum, terbium and europium, are used to make specialized magnets, phosphors and other [...]

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On The Green Road: Cape Town Capers II – South African Rare Earths As Part Of The Global Picture

by Jack Lifton February 8, 2010

On Friday, February 5, I flew from Cape Town in a small plane, to Springbok, Northern Cape Province, Republic of South Africa, to visit a privately-owned rare earth exploration site there. I was impressed by two aspects of the deposits that the owners had discovered so far:

The grades presented were as high as 21%, and
the [...]

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Rare Metal ETFs: the Positives and the Negatives

by Jack Lifton February 6, 2010

I’m still in Cape Town, but I got the news a couple of days ago from a Canadian source, that a major Canadian bank, quite active in mining finance, has publicly announced that it has agreed to undertake (but not underwrite, as far as I know) the raising of $25,000,000 for the purpose of capitalizing an ETF that will [...]

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Rare Earth Deposit Holdings Of Utah-Based U.S. Rare Earths, Inc. Ranked Highly In Global Listing By The U.S. Geological Survey

by Admin February 4, 2010

February 4, 2010 – SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)– U.S. Rare Earths, Inc. (www.usrareearths.com), a privately owned company, announced today that its rare earth element deposits in Idaho and Montana were listed as among the nation’s most important domestic deposits in the annual listing of the worldwide distribution of rare earth element deposits, produced by the U.S. [...]

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Could China Suspend American Independence Of Action Using Rare Metals Supply As A Tool Of Diplomacy?

by Jack Lifton February 3, 2010

You may have seen the story over the weekend on China’s suspension of military exchanges with the USA.
The geopolitics of natural resource geography may be about to rear its head for the first time since the Cold War ended. Perhaps a Cool War is now underway.  Americans currently in political power seem to have very short [...]

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Rare Earth Demand Rises, No Supply Increase Seen Outside China

by Admin February 2, 2010

by Jade Davenport – MINING WEEKLY– Published: Feb 1, 2010
Demand for rare-earth metals was increasing “exponentially”, primarily driven by demand for new technology, independent consultant and commentator Jack Lifton said on Monday.
He told delegates attending the 2010 Mining Indaba in Cape Town that 2010 was already shaping up as the year of rare metals.
Rare-earth metals are [...]

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On The Green Road: Cape Town Capers – A Field Report On The Rare Metals Mania Of 2010

by Jack Lifton January 30, 2010

It’s just about midnight, local time on Saturday, January 30, 2010, and I’m about to land in Cape Town in the Republic of South Africa. I’ve been traveling for 24 hours from my home base in Detroit. On Monday I will be speaking in Cape Town at Mining Indaba 2010, Africa’s annual mining congress and probably [...]

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The Rare Earth Crisis Of The Second Decade Of The Twenty-First Century: A Threat Or An Opportunity?

by Jack Lifton January 16, 2010

Allow me to pose a question: with regard to the rare earths, is there a global threat of supply interruption by China – or is any threat really due to a failure of the American way of doing business?
America was actually self-sufficient in its supply of rare earth metals until 2002. In that year, due [...]

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