DRE Chart, page-2635

Slick,

"PS, did you used to have a cat as your avatar?"
That is a long way back. There was a cat. The current one came in when I blew up the boat (pictured), with me in it. It is to remind me how lucky I am to have survived that incident. I spent 6 weeks in a burns ward at hospital, but that's another story.

Back to rare earths. My first job was as a trainee industrial chemist. I worked in a laboratory that developed the extraction method, used today by Lynas and the Chinese, to extract and purify the rare earth elements from Monazite. This was in 1948 and 1949. The government had an interest in the Monazite for its Thorium content and used to collect the monazite in commonwealth vehicles and remove it from the site. We had to get special permission to retain some for production. We set up a pilot plant and were producing refined Cerium. At the time it was used for polishing glass in spectacles and binoculars. Everything else went down the drain. Somewhere or other I have a test tube of the first cerium that was extracted from the initial pilot plant.

Years later my son in law was working fly in fly out for Barrick. He used to tell me about the Lynas crew flying on the same plane to the adjoining Lynas mine. I used to get a bit of "barbeque talk" about progress.

I like to invest in companies where I understand their business. I also have a degree in Business Management, obtained as an adult student in later years. This was also handy in making judgements about the early Lynas management. It was good to see out the Curtis years and see the current management take over.

Rare earths, themselves, are not all that rare but the ability to economically mine and process varies between companies. DRE has yet to prove themselves in that department, but I believe they are on the right track so far.

DRE are not just a rare earth prospector but also have gold prospects. They are not likely, in my opinion, to proceed to mining. They are more likely to prove a deposit and sell it on. I'm hoping for short term gain and not looking at a long-term investment.