We just don't need posters like that. Of course the best action is to simply place on ignore as I was only fueling the fire.
I tried restraining myself several times, but the posts were so ludicrous I succumbed.
The competition is definitely going to heat up in coming years as opportunities in rare earths are realised...
Hybrids driving rare earth interest Northern Sask. deposit growing in significance as auto industry shifts gears
Murray Lyons The StarPhoenix
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Managing Director of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Atsushi Toyoshima poses with the technology demonstator Toyota Prius hybrid car at the Toyota stall during the inauguration of 17th International Engineering and Technology Fair (IETF) in New Delhi, 13 February 2007. CREDIT: Manpreet Romana/Getty Images Managing Director of Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Atsushi Toyoshima poses with the technology demonstator Toyota Prius hybrid car at the Toyota stall during the inauguration of 17th International Engineering and Technology Fair (IETF) in New Delhi, 13 February 2007. Ron Malashewski (left) and Gordon Dent with Great Western Minerals Group's Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle -- which contains nearly 20 kilograms of rare earth minerals CREDIT: Richard Marjan, The StarPhoenix Ron Malashewski (left) and Gordon Dent with Great Western Minerals Group's Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle -- which contains nearly 20 kilograms of rare earth minerals
Just before the new millennium began, Gary Billingsley of Saskatoon was trying to drum up interest in a penny mining stock known as Great Western Minerals Ltd.
The company's main asset was a deposit of rare earth oxides at a place called Hoidas Lake, located as far north in Saskatchewan as you can get.
At about the same time, in Japan, Toyota Motor Corp. was launching what was then a rare form of car, a gas-electric hybrid it called the Prius.
Flash forward eight years later to June 2007.
Toyota announced this month it has sold more than one million hybrid vehicles worldwide. Billingsley, chair of what is now called Great Western Minerals Group Ltd., doesn't have to speak in a vacuum to people in industry about the importance of a rare earth deposit in North America.
The connection between the huge Japanese vehicle manufacturer and Great Western, a company with a market capitalization of just $25 million based on its 37 cent share price, is the Hoidas Lake rare earth deposit.
A Prius, such as the decal-festooned model that Great Western employees drive around Saskatoon, contains nearly 20 kilograms of rare earth oxides and metals in its battery packs and electric drive motors.
The issue that is emerging as companies such as General Motors join the race to build hybrid vehicles is that car companies are totally reliant on China for their rare earths.
"Toyota has recently announced that they will be 100 per cent hybrid by 2020," Billingsley said Tuesday at Great Western's annual meeting. "New York wants all of their cabs to be hybrid by 2012 and Vancouver by 2010."
As China puts export duties and restrictions on rare earths, and Chinese industry begins to consume more rare earth oxides and metals in its own factories in China, the auto industry is waking up to the need for alternative sources of rare earths, Great Western shareholders were told.
While the junior mining company has yet to see the kind of surge in its stock price that uranium companies are experiencing in the face of short supply, rare earth oxides and metals are also going up in price -- at times by as much as four times what they were trading at a few years ago, says veteran Japanese metal trader Kaz Machida, a member of the Great Western board.
Because of higher domestic demand in China, Machida estimates Chinese exports of rare earths will drop by at least 5,000 tonnes to 40,000 tonnes this year.
Billingsley told the meeting that Great Western Minerals should be in a position by late 2008 or early 2009 to make a production decision on Hoidas Lake. He says Japanese metal trading companies or car companies will be likely investors in the project.
The rare earth deposit is so far north that it is at least 50 kilometres beyond the Fond-du-Lac Dene First Nations community, where the Saskatchewan government plans to terminate the northern road system.
Billingsley says Fond-du-Lac may become the preferred site to do the preliminary extraction of the Hoidas Lake ore in a leaching process currently being tested. He says the company has looked at whether large hovercraft with 80-tonne capacity could be employed to move heavy equipment to Hoidas Lake and ore back to Fond-du-Lac. He said getting equipment purchased and moved onto the site will be the biggest challenge.
"I don't think labour is going to be a problem up there," he said. "There already is a well-developed workforce in the First Nations communities, who have spent a lot of time working in the uranium mines, who are keen on this project."
ARU Price at posting:
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