China Strengthens 2011 Rare Earths Regulation

The Ministry of Land and Resources has designated 11 rare earth mining blocks in Jiangxi as national planning centres

(Beijing) – China has drawn-up national planning regions for rare earth and iron mines to strengthen government regulation over the development of the metals.

According to the Ministry of Land and Resources, the national planning regions are comprised of 11 rare earth mining blocks covering 2,534 square meters in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province. It also includes 466.94 square meters of vanadium titano-magnetite mining areas in western Panzhihua in Sichuan Province.

Since 2010, the Chinese government has accelerated the consolidation of the country's rare earth resources. According to a plan set by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China will reduce the number of rare earth refining companies to 20 from the current number of more than 100 by 2015.

The Ministry of Commerce set quotas for 2011's first batch of rare earth exports at 14,446 metric tons on December 28, a 35 percent decline from the same period last year.

China accounts for more than 90 percent of the world's supply of rare earths, elements essential for high-tech electronics and electric vehicles.

Molycorp Verses Lynas Corp In A Race To Rare Earths Production

Published on Tuesday December 14 2010

A crunch in "rare earth" minerals may be on the way, and that has miners scrambling to boost production.

6 Months Performance Gains Lynas V Molycorp

Since Molycorps's IPO Listing

Visit my other site Australian Uranium Investing

Global Rare Earth Element Supply Shortage Looms By 2012

Published on Tuesday Sept 14 2010

Circled above are the 17 Elements that make up the Rare Earth Table

It's the bubble you've probably never heard of: The rare earth bubble. And it's due to pop in 2012, potentially devastating the industries of western nations that depend on these rare elements.

What industries are those?

The automobile industry uses tens of thousands of tons of rare earth elements each year, and advanced military technology depends on these elements, too. Lots of "green" technologies depend on them, including wind turbines, low-energy light bulbs and hybrid car batteries. In fact, much of western civilization depends on rare earth elements such as terbium, lanthanum andneodymium.

So what's the problem with these rare elements? 97 percent of the world's supply comes from mines in China, and China is prepared to simply stop exporting these strategic elements to the rest of the world by 2010.

If that happens, the western world will be crippled by the collapse of available rare earth elements. Manufacturing of everything from computers and electronics to farm machinery will grind to a halt. Electronics will disappear from the shelves and prices for manufactured goods that depend on these rare elements will skyrocket.




These 17 rare earth elements (REE) -- all of which are metals -- are strategic resourcesupon which entire nations are built. In many ways, they are similar to rubber -- a resource so valuable and important to the world that many experts call it the "fourth most important natural resource in the world," right after water, steel and oil. Without rubber, you couldn't drive your car to work or water your lawn. Many medical technologies would cease to work and virtually all commercial construction would grind to a halt.

Many of the strategic battles fought in World War II were fought, in fact, over control of rubber, most of which now comes through Singapore and its surrounding regions (Malaysia and Indonesia).

Global shortage of Rare Earth Elements coming...
Now, by threatening to cut off the world's supply of rare earth elements, China appears to be attempting to monopolize this extremely important strategic resource. According to information received by The Independent, by 2012 China may cease all exports of rare earth elements, reserving them for its own economic expansion.

An article in that paper quotes REE expert Jack Lifton as saying, "A real crunch is coming. In America, Britain and elsewhere we have not yet woken up to the fact that there is an urgent need to secure the supply of rare earths from sources outside China."

And yet virtually no one has heard of this problem! People are familiar with peak oil, global warming, ocean acidification, the national debt and the depletion of fossil water, but very few are aware of the looming crisis in rare metals... upon which much of western civilization rests.

For those who still aren't convinced this is a big deal, consider this: Without rare earth elements, we would have no iPhones. Yeah, I know. That's a disaster, huh?

We would have no fibre optic cables, either. No X-ray machines, no car stereos and no high-tech missile guidance systems for the military. And here's the real kicker: No electric motors.

Demand outstrips supply

The problem with the supply of rare earth elements is that demand has skyrocketed over the last decade from 40,000 tons to 120,000 tons. Meanwhile, China has been cutting its exports. Now, it only exports about 30,000 tons a year -- only one-fourth of the demand the world needs.

In order to build more "green" technologies, the world will need 200,000 tons of rare earth elements by 2014, predicts The Independent. Yet China now threatens to drop exports to exactly zero tons by 2012.

It isn't hard to do the math on this: Without China's exports, the western world will quickly run out of rare earth elements.

Kiss your "green" wind-turbines good-bye. And your Toyota Prius production lines, too. No more iPhones and iPods either. Without these rare earth elements, entire industries grind to a halt.

Can we mine it elsewhere?

China isn't the only geographic region where these rare earth elements are found, but constructing mines to pull these elements out of the ground takes many years. Some mines are under construction right now in other countries that could help fill the demand for REEs, but making them operational is "five to ten years away," says Lifton.

That means these other mines won't really be operational until 2015 - 2020. Meanwhile, China could cut off its supply in 2012. That leaves a 3-7 year gap in which these rare earth elements will be in disastrously short supply.

This brings up a couple of very important realizations related to investments:

It is almost certain that the prices for rare earth elements will skyrocket over the next 2 - 5 years. This creates a huge investment opportunity for people willing to take a risk and bet their money on rising prices of these metals.

There's another big investment opportunity here, too: Recycling rare earth elements. As prices leap higher, it will become more economically feasible to harvest rare earth elements out of garbage dumps and landfills where people are discarding electronics such as motors, computers, sound systems and other such items.

Some smart entrepreneur will no doubt make a fortune by setting up and operating a rare earth element reclamation operation of some kind. These elements, after all, aren't destroyed when they're thrown away. They sit around in the trash for eons, just waiting to be reclaimed and re-used.

Lead, for example, is a metal that is successfully recycled today. Something like 85% of all the lead used in America today is reclaimed out of lead-acid batteries and other similar devices. If similar programs could be initiated for the rare metals, we could go a long way towards meeting society's demand for these elements without having to keep mining them out of the ground.

Because let's face it: Mining these rare earth elements is a very DIRTY business. That's part of the contradiction in "green" technologies, by the way: To manufacture them, you need rare metals mined out of ecologically disastrous operations in China. It's the (literal) "dirty little secret" of the green industry. All these wind turbines, solar panels, hybrid car batteries and fiber optics may seem green to the consumer, but behind them there's a very dirty mining business that rapes the planet and pollutes the rivers in order to recover these "green" rare metals.

In any case, unless scientists find less-rare alternatives to many of these rare earth metals, we are looking at a serious global supply crunch for the years 2012 - 2020. Add the "rare earth elements bubble" to your list of other bubbles to watch out for in the years ahead.

Some of the 17 rare earth elements

Dysprosium - Makes electric motor magnets 90% lighter

Terbium - Makes electric lights 80% more efficient

Neodymium - Used in motor magnets

Lanthanum - Used for hydrogen storage

Praseodymium - Used in lasers and ceramic materials

Gadolinium - Used to manufacture computer memory

Erbium - Used in the manufacture of vanadium steel

Ytterbium - Used to make infrared lasers

Rare Earths - China Stranglehold Has Changed The Game

Published on Sunday Sept 5, 2010



All 17 of the rare earth elements are metals.
Cerium
Dysprosium,
Erbium,
Europium,
Gadolinium,
Holmium,
Lanthanum,
Lutetium,
Neodymium,
Praseodymium,
Promethium,
Samarium,
Candium,
Terbium,
Thulium,
Ytterbium
Yttrium

Unfamiliar names, yet rare earths are used in most modern and almost all ‘green’ applications. A few everyday examples are cell phones, computer monitors, DVD players, flat panel televisions, e-readers, iPods, rechargeable batteries for hybrid and electric cars, catalysts in cars and oil refineries, advanced ceramics, super-conductors, fiber optics, lasers, CFL light bulbs, wind turbines, and military systems.

About 97% of the world’s rare earth supplies originate from China. In fact, there are very few companies outside China producing the metals. Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-Tech Co. is China’s single largest producer of the metals. In 2008, China produced 120,000 tonnes of rare earth metals followed by India with 2,700 tonnes. Brazil and Malaysia were the third and fourth largest producers respectively.

China, Japan and the United States are the largest consumers of rare earth metals. With the growing demand for ‘green’ products, the demand for rare earth metals is only expected to increase. Supplies however, are facing deep constraints. The annual growth in demand is expected to hover around 10% but according to analysts, China will be able to supply only 160,000–170,000 tonnes of rare earth metals against an expected demand of 200,000–210,000 tonnes by 2014.

Since 2005, the Chinese government has been imposing export quotas on many of the rare earth metals, resulting in reduced global supply. Higher prices are a natural result of such supply restrictions.

Analysts are of the opinion that by 2012, the rest of the world could face a major supply crisis because of China’s reduced or zero supply. The demand-supply is expected to touch 30,000–40,000 tonnes by 2012 in the absence of any new large supplier. China’s export quotas for the second half of 2010 have already been reduced by an alarming 40%. Reacting to China’s announcement, David Menzie, Chief of the International Minerals Section at the US Geological Survey, said, “Countries and companies that have or plan to develop industries that need rare earth minerals to make products are concerned about China’s growing consumption, which they fear will eliminate China’s exports of rare earths”.

China currently consumes 60% of the global rare earth metals and the nation’s growing economy is creating a worldwide threat to supply. China insists that it requires the high supplies to meet the demands of its clean energy and high-tech sectors. Analyst Min Li of Yuanta Securities cautions, “Foreign companies could be facing some material supply risks, unless they decide to move production to China.”

The global rare earth market is still relatively small but with both China and South Korea planning to soon increase their electric and hybrid car production by 1 million units each, Toyota Motor Corporation intent on doubling production of the Prius to 2 million units, and the massive increase in demand for wind turbines worldwide, the market is unlikely to remain small for too long.

While the development of new ‘green’ technologies that are rare earth-free could challenge China’s monopoly, it cannot be denied that China will continue to control the global market for some time to come. Several new overseas mine projects are in the pipeline but few are likely to be able to compete with China on prices. Besides, it would require at least a decade before new mines can make an impact on the global market.

TODAYS POLL - To Which ASX Listed Rare Earth Company Has The Best Uptrend Potential On Current Share Price