Quite bullish: Goldman Sachs Rare Metals Predictions

http://online.barrons.com/news/articles/SB51367578116875004693704580454662782890760

Rare earths: We expect an intensification of industry restructuring in 2015, driven by government initiatives, to boost RE prices. We estimate HRE (heavy rare earth) and PrNd (Praseodymium-Neodymium Oxide) to benefit from NdFeB (neodymium magnet) demand, and continue to outperform light RE.

China’s economy in transition: we favor “new materials”
With China’s economy in transition mode from a commodity intensive fixed asset investment (FAI) driven, to one more consumption and services based, we believe gross margins for new technology metals — those used in environmental applications, green vehicles, high-tech electronics — will remain more stable as demand continues to grow. We remain optimistic on NdFeB magnets and auto catalysts, which in turn should support rare earth demand. We forecast overall China rare earth demand to continue to grow at 3% yoy in 2015, and 4% yoy in 2016.

Comment: for green vehicles read REEs and FeNiobium (making cars weigh a lot less); for auto catalysts read zirconium ceramics. So GS is basically bullish for all of our product streams ...