Breathe easyABOUT a month ago, Pure Speculation expressed a...

Breathe easy

ABOUT a month ago, Pure Speculation expressed a little concern about a decision by Northern Uranium (NTU) to sell 51 per cent of itself to a Chinese company that is involved in what was described as "major state classified projects".

It was all about NTU's heavy (the most valuable ones) rare earths project in the Northern Territory. As you know, rare earths are a big geopolitical issue at the moment; they are vital to so many technologies and China controls 95 per cent of the world's supplies.

Anyway, it looks as if we can breathe a sigh of relief. Since then we've had rare earths leader Lynas Corp (LYC) snap up 9.44 per cent of NTU in a move which was seen as the first step to blocking the Chinese, and now Northern Uranium has decided to put the Chinese proposal on hold and, instead, deal its own shareholders back into the mix with a $6.6 million rights issue.

At some stage, Australia is going to need a national discussion on ownership and control of these and other strategic minerals -- a far more useful dialogue than the mining tax nonsense.




NTU could be in play... if LYC is interested, this could move.