RE: RE: RE: New Lifton Comment...Lifton Concerns?Concerns over the REE guru Jack Lifton? Actually I started having some "concerns" on Lifton after reading this in his "
The Age of Technology Metals".
Lifton wrote:
"Some of the most important of the so-called minor metals are only found as by-products of base metals. The base metal copper is a source of 75% of the world’s molybdenum and rhenium. Copper is also the source of 95% of the world’s tellurium and selenium.
And when they reduce the production of base metals, they also reduce the production of molybdenum, rhenium, selenium, and tellurium. So what? Well, you can’t make a jet engine or a rocket engine without rhenium. First Solar Corporation in Ohio makes cadmium telluride thin film photovoltaic cells; the cadmium comes from zinc, and the tellurium comes from copper. Therefore, the reduction in base metals production has also reduced the production of the key minor technology metals used for solar—and there is no substitute. So right this minute we’re in the situation of running on inventory, which is not large, and recycling is almost non-existent for these materials because their uses are dissipated."
Lifton got really interesting here:
"
I predicted at a recent conference that copper would hit perhaps as much as $10 a pound by 2011. But I’ll tell you who didn’t tell me I was crazy—all the men who were on those panels. One of them said to me, you know what’s wrong with your prediction? I said what? He said you’re way low—we know that there are critical technologies that are now based on derivatives of copper."
While I'm a super bull on REEs, I'm also bullish on other metals driving both clean tech applications and the emerging Asian Middle Class. Copper is one such metal. Indeed just one Vestas V90 3.0 MW wind turbine will consume 4.7 tons of the red metal.
But nowhere is anyone else talking about a double digit dollar price for copper - over 3.5 times its current level and some 2.5 it's all time record level. Even more so in so short a time frame. This wasn't a 2020 prediction.
So I double checked. I asked the chief geo at a copper junior. A geo who has a PhD in the field from Stanford and a proven industry track record in that he was behind the discovery of the 1 billion plus ton copper discovery at Resolution in Arizona.
He's what I got back:
"Dear ThaiDiamond,
Great question. Our opinion is that REE’s will have limited effect as a catalyst for the copper price going forward based on the following.
Even though porphyry copper deposits are much enriched in LREEs (light rare earth elements, e.g.lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium), they just aren’t enriched enough compared to a good old fashioned carbonatitic or alkaline intrusive REE resource to compete on an economic basis.
If one believes that REEs are headed higher, these are the kinds of deposits to look for not porphyry copper deposits.
Also, within the current production system, the folks who get credit for the selenium and tellurium are the smelters. Because these products are a by-product, this relationship is not price sensitive as it is based on where the parties are situated in the production process. These metals are not found in coarse-grained minerals that one could separate physically but rather are atomic-level substitutions in common sulfide minerals like pyrite or chalcopyrite requiring a smelter. Only by purifying many tons of these sulfide minerals in a smelter do you end up with marketable quantities of selenium or tellurium.
All the Best"
I forwarded this reply to Jack, but did not get a reply.
But I have noticed he hasn't forecast a future price of copper recently.