trading advice, page-14

Saw an an article where MCP's CEO mentions the movement from spot market to a more predictable longer term supply for some industries. (sorry if this has been posted earlier)

http://www.indmin.com/Article/3279988/Channel/19561/Molycorp-Long-term-contracts-will-be-the-future-for-rare-earths.html

Some quotes

.....

"Although it’s hard to believe end users would sacrifice the ability afforded by spot pricing to control costs themselves in favour of long term contracts, in the largely Chinese-monopolised rare earths business, it is plausible that customers would want to move into long term future agreements to secure supply.

“In the last 20 years, it's been totally impossible to enter into long term contracts,” Karayannopoulos explained. “There's always been a group in the industry that made it impossible to offer long term pricing. But some of the industry are eager for longer term contracts. The automotive industry want three year contracts,” he said.

“Some of the technology companies are also very interested in longer term contracts,” he added. “They cannot continue to take the risk that the industry has taken with spot pricing”.

....."

And an admission

"In SorbX, the cerium wastewater product the company created to treat its own waste, the company believes it could be a gamechanger, but it will take time – “years, not weeks, months or quarters” – for the industry to catch on, said Karayannopoulos.

Green giant
In terms of the challenges faced by the company, Karayannopoulos said that the sheer scale of the project put forward in the time allocated was probably the largest hurdle.
“Getting Mountain Pass up and running was a very ambitious project, and it was done very, very quickly. The scope of the plan and the amount of time it took was really extraordinary. If we were to do it all over again, we would add a couple of years,” he said.
..."