sumitomo, page-20

The giant Sumitomo Corp, Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp and Kazatoprom are the three partners in the undertaking which will provide Japan with more than 10 percent of its annual dysprosium requirements.

It is scheduled to start production as early as this summer to produce 30 tonnes (metric tons) of dysprosium to be exported to Japan before the end of this year. In 2013, a total production volume of over 50 tonnes is planned. Japan's industries need 500 tonnes to 600 tonnes of dysprosium per year.

Source:- http://www.edgekz.com/kazakhstan-poised-for-rare-earth-boom.html

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Japan's giant Sumitomo Corporation has invested in a big way in Kazakhstan, Yerzhan Ishanov, the company's Business Development Manager for Central Eurasia, told EdgeKz. "We are working with a relatively large number of Kazakhstan companies, mainly in chemical, mineral, telecommunication, power infrastructure, oil and gas and others fields," Ishanov said. "We think that there is a very good investment climate in this country and that consequently Japanese companies can make long term investments here."

Ishanov said he expects the scale of the rare earths mining venture to grow rapidly in the next few years. "The current design capacity is 1,500 tons of rare earth per year, but we are going to double our capacity within the next five to six years. And if the market situation will allow us to expand the project further, why not? We are ready," he said.

Japan is going to need a guaranteed supply of heavy rare earth metals for the foreseeable future, Ishanov told EdgeKz. "The Japanese market is the biggest in the world for rare earth consumption and a lot of high tech industries need rare earths," he said. "These include hybrid and electric vehicles, mobile phones, PCs, hard disk drives, catalysts, LCDs and many others

Source:- http://www.edgekz.com/kazakhstan-poised-for-rare-earth-boom.html

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Northern Minerals need to get their project into production ASAP - the longer they leave it, the more market share will be stolen by the likes of Kazatoprom