RE: Such fretting ..... my goodness
You suggest GE but also many other firms may want to get their hands on Dacha. A Japanese firm just provided funding to Lynas. Here is the story:
Japanese Funding of Lynas Corp. Wins Approval
By Michael Montgomery—Exclusive to Rare Earth Investing News
Asthe prices of rare earth elements continue to surge following newrounds of Chinese regulations have stirred up the market yet again.Chinese rare earth behemoth, Baotou Steel Rare Earth, announced netprofits for 2010 have risen by 1,246 percentdue to exploding prices. Non-Chinese rare earth hopefuls continue todevelop their deposits and expand their operations as quickly aspossible to capitalize on the massive gains realized over the last twoyears. Currently, the two largest players outside of China, Lynas Corp. located in Australia, and Molycorp in the US have announcements of their own. Molycorp just announced its acquisition of Silmet in Estonia, expanding the scope of their operations into Europe. Lynas Corp. has just announceda partnership with Japanese trading house Sojitz Corporation, as wellas an agreement to sublease areas within their Mt. Weld deposit.
Lynas Corporation (ASX:LYC)(PINK:LYSCF) has announced that the Foreign Investment Review Board has approved a deal with Japan’s Sojitz Corporation to fund ongoing operations on their deposit. The financing deal is a $325 million loan,as well as $25 million in new shares in the company. In exchange, Lynashas agreed to supply a minimum of 8,500 tonnes for the next ten years.Previous attempts from Chinese firms looking to fund various operationsin Australia have not been approved. The deal seems to be a win for thecompany has they receive badly needed funding for their Mt. Weldproject, as well as a guaranteeing an off-take partner for the nextdecade.
The company’s Mt. Weld Deposit is a world class deposit, no questionabout it. The average composition of the element in their deposit hashigh concentrations of the most in-demand elements in the rare earthgroup. According to the company, Mt. Weld’s resourcecontains 46.74 percent cerium, 25.5 percent lanthanum, and 18.5 percentneodymium, followed by praseodymium, samarium, and dysprosium. These‘light’ rare earths may be of less value currently, but are have a muchhigher demand worldwide due to their applications. Cerium is mainly usedin auto catalysts, flat screen televisions and monitors, as well as anessential ingredient to compact fluorescent light bulbs that are quicklyreplacing traditional light bulbs because of government regulationsworldwide. Neodymium and lanthanum are essential components ofhybrid/electric autos, wind turbines, and other high tech goods fortheir applications in magnets and batteries, respectively.
The company is also developing their processing plant in Malaysia.Lynas’ Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) is currently being built toprocess material from their Australian operations. The plant has comeunder fire from some environmental groups in the region because of thethorium that is a byproduct of rare earth production. This story wascovered by Rare Earth Investing News on March, 14.The vertical integration of the company may offset the higher costs ofproduction on the site as compared with industry competitor Molycorp. Great Western Mineralshas also vertically integrated their operations with processingfacilities in the US and England, however, has yet to start producing ontheir deposit in South Africa.
Lynas and Molycorp will be the first two major western companies tohit the market with rare earth oxides. Molycorp has already been sellingoxides from old tailing on their past producing mine, and hope to beinto full production in 2012, producing an estimated 19,500 tonnes ofoxides. They have also recently announced that the board of directorsapproved ‘Phase 2’ on their Mt. Pass deposit, raising productionestimates up to “40,000 metric tons of REO equivalent per year,”according to the press release. These two companies are leading the charge for western production of rare earth elements.
Rare Moon Mining News?
The power that rare earth elements have had over the market over thelast year has developed some interesting headlines; however, this onemay win the ‘most ambitious and/or humorous mining project of the yearaward.’
In what can be described as another worldly headline, start-up firm Moon Express Inc.or Moon-EX, is looking to send an autonomous vehicle to the moon by2013, to look for rare earth elements among other minerals forcommercial mining. The company has been working with NASA’s AmesResearch Lab in Mountain View California to develop the technologyneeded for their first voyage.