rare earth prices soar, page-17

Certaily true - GGG is a classic example thank goodness they do not have too many negative rampers so it maintains a healthy interest. And factual input is always beneficial.

Anyways another article from 4th May 2011
http://www.xydo.com/toolbar/19494195-rare_earth_prices_on_the_rise_-_live_trading_news

"Rare Earth prices on the rise

Prices for Rare Earth metals have doubled in the last 4 months, they are the metallic elements needed for many of the most sophisticated civilian and military technologies. This years increases come on top of price gains of about 400% during Y 2010.

The reason is Econ 101: demand is outstriping efforts to expand supplies and break Chinas firm grasp on the market.

Examples: Neodymium, a rare earth necessary for a range of products including headphones and hybrid electric cars, now brings more than US$283 kgm (US$129 lb) on the Spot market. A year ago it sold for about US$42 a kgm (US$19 lb).

Samarium, crucial to the manufacture of missiles, has climbed to more than US$146 kgm, up from US$18.50 last year.

While the price esclation is a concern to manufacturers, consumers in many cases not notice the price rises of rare earths, as the materials, crucial to the performance of everyday equipment like automotive catalytic converters and laptop computer display screens, rare earths most often used only in trace quantities.

The exception: the Toyota Prius hybrid car, whose manufacture uses 1 kilogram of neodymium.

The high price of Rare Earths reflect activities in the small Global industry that mines and refines them. China, which controls more than 95% of the market, has further restricted exports so as to conserve supplies for its own high-tech and Green Energy industries. That, despite the World Trade Organizations (WTO) ban on most export restrictions.

That said there is an ambitious effort to open the Worlds largest Rare Earth refinery in Malaysia, which was thought to begin operating by this Fall, is now tied up over regulatory reviews of the disposal plans for thousands of tons of low-level radioactive waste the plant would produce annually. Public opposition to the refinery is evident in the weekly protest demonstrations now being held there.

Innovative Japanese companies are finding it harder to recycle Rare Earths from electronics and to begin Rare Earth mining and refining in Vietnam.

Although Rare Earths are crucial to the supply chains of some of the Worlds biggest manufacturers, the industry that mines and refines them is made up small, entrepreneurial companies. Lately however, the rising prices have contributed to industry consolidation.

Molycorp (NYSE:MPC) the only American company now producing Rare Earths, said on April 4th that it had paid US$89M for a more than 90% stake in Silmet of Estonia, a small company in Rare Earth processing.

In Malaysia, where the Giant Rare Earth refinery is under construction near the eastern port of Kuantan, regulators are delaying approval for an operating permit on public concern about naturally occurring low-level radioactive contamination of the Rare Earth ore, which will be mined in Australia.

Raja Dato Abdul Aziz bin Raja Adnan, the director general of the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board, said the board had asked the Lynas Corporation of Australia, the builder of the refinery, to provide additional documentation before accepting its application for an initial operating permit. It will take up to 6 months to review the application, Raja Adnan said, and Lynas will not be allowed to bring any raw material to the plant until a permit is issued.

Nicholas Curtis, Lynas's Executive Chairman, said that he believed the company could obtain the necessary approvals before September and that his Company is staying with its plan to begin feeding Australian ore into the Malaysian refinerys kilns by the end of that month.

The Malaysian government also announced last week that it would appoint a panel of International experts to review the safety of Lynass plans. The Company said it welcomed the move."

And some of these prices have doubled or more since 4th May 2011 alone. Certainly something is in the air obviously with rare earths!