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Eleven Rare Earth Companies To Watch, Including Molycorp, Lynas, Greenland Minerals, Avalon, Arafura And More
by Jackie Steinitz

The companies reviewed below cover a variety of business models in the rare earths space.This article follows on from Rare Earth Elements: The Seventeen Metals Crunch

Factors to consider when reviewing the explorer/developers include the skills base within the company, the likely access to capital (rare earth projects are expensive), the political risk and? the required infrastructure (many are in remote places).? The development stage of the project is also an important consideration as (a) rare earth projects are complex and take longer than those of other commodities particularly as they require a pilot plant to test the complex metallurgical process and (b) in a relatively small market first mover advantage is important.?

Particularly crucial too is the quality and metallurgy of the orebody:? Is the mineral amenable to REE recovery?? Are there contaminants and if so how will they be treated?? What is the grade of the REE?? What proportion of the resource are valuable heavy rare earth elements and what proportion is light?

Lynas Corporation (ASX:LYC, Market Capitalization: AUD$2.5 billion)


ASX-listed Lynas Corporation owns the richest deposit of rare earths in the world, it should be the next rare earths producer off the block, and it is the largest of the companies in this review.? Its stated aim is "to create a reliable integrated source of Rare Earths from mine to market and to become the benchmark for the security of supply and environmental standards in the global Rare Earths industry".?


The company has two projects underway.? It is developing a mine and concentration plant at Mount Weld in Western Australia.? The mine is complete and the concentration plant due to come online in December 2010.? It is also building a state of the art Rare Earths processing plant, the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) near Kuantan in Pahang, Malaysia where production is scheduled to commence in the third quarter of 2011.


Mount Weld is situated some 700km+ from Perth near to the town of Laverton. It hosts the Mount Weld carbonatite, a 3.5km diameter near-vertical plug which in turn hosts two rare earth deposits.? The Central Lathanide deposit is the richest in the world with an REO grade of 10.7%. The estimated resource for the nearby Duncan deposit (formerly called the Southern Zone) has just been increased threefold.? The combined rare earths estimate for the two deposits now stands at 17.5M tonnes at 8.1% REO, for a total contained REO of 1.416 million tonnes.

The open pit has already been constructed and there are stockpiles sitting at the surface.? These will be concentrated in a plant 1.5km from the mine then shipped in sea containers and transported by road and ship to the processing plant where the concentrate will be processed into separate Rare Earths products. Lynas selected Malaysia for the LAMP due to the readily available industrial infrastructure, including? land, energy, water, re-agents from local suppliers and a port that can manage container, chemical and bulk shipments. The area where the plant is being built also offers much knowledge infrastructure, such as technical and trade skills and chemical industry experience. The government infrastructure is in place and provides accountable regulators, clear legal frameworks and FDI incentives. Lynas already has a number of supply contracts in place.