some newspaper commentary

Just a little bit of commentary below for CUX found today

Boost for Alkane
A BIG step forward for rare earths hopeful Alkane Resources (ALK). Credit Suisse, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank and Petra Capital will rustle up the $1 billion needed to get operational at the Dubbo project, with separate production lines of zirconium, rare earths and niobium. While it will be well behind the Mt Weld mine owned by Lynas Corp (LYC), Dubbo will have a ready market in that its rare earths mix has good quantities of the highly prized dysprosium, yttrium and terbium.
Processing is already looked after with Japan's Shin-Etsu - one of the world's leading rare earths processors - taking all the mine's output. No tricky Malaysian problems.
Alkane will no doubt be hoping that NSW can get off its backside with the approvals process. The company had to wait 15 months for the Sydney bureaucracy to finally sign off on Alkane's Tomingley gold project. It plans to submit all its Dubbo applications just after New Year.
Another rare earths play to watch is Crossland Uranium Mines (CUX), which is starting metallurgical test work on its Charley Creek project in the Northern Territory.
It is pitching low cost as a big plus - Charley Creek is alluvial, not hard rock like most rare earth projects here - and the fact that the more valuable heavy rare earths make up 17 per cent of its deposit, compared with 0.7 per cent at Mt Weld.
This comes in a week when China's lowest-cost rare earths producer, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare Earth Hi-Tech, announced it was closing most of its rare earth production for a month due to tumbling prices. According to the Nikkei news service, prices for rare earths have fallen 30 per cent and several refiners have closed and some producers have gone bankrupt.
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