aelb briefing, page-161

Superpaddy - I posted on another thread here why the business model might be in question. In summary, CeO and LaO are forecast to go into oversupply once Lynas and MolyCorp ramp up and they're a big component of the basket price so the basket price could drop a lot further. However, the big question for me is - Are the REE supply forecasts wrong in that they don't take into account that MolyCorp won't be online when they say and that many of the junior REE companies don't have a hope in hell of actually making it into production with the huge costs of setting up a processing plant while REO prices are falling? Also, I've never understood why it's such a big deal that China's rare earth reserves are falling. I know there's the argument that rare earths aren't rare etc, but who was looking for rare earth deposits when the basket price was $10/kg and surely they can just buy up the companies / deposits of the junior REE explorers like ARU that don't have a hope of making it into production. After all, China has been processing this stuff for ages, all they need is more rare earth deposits, why are they going to become a net importer of the finished product? I notice ARU has a new Chinese investor, maybe that's been their plan all along.