sumitomo, page-18

hiwayman, always appreciate your well researched posts.

Speaking of research, check out this 2 November 2012 news story:

Heavy rare earth processing plant opened in Kazakhstan, and NTU's MOU Off Take partner Sumitomo Corporation owns 49%

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Kazakh city of Stepnogorsk hosted the opening ceremony of a new production complex of collective concentrates of rare earth metals (REM), built by a joint Kazakh-Japanese company Summit Atom Rare Earth Company (SARECO), the Kazakhstan National Atomic Company Kazatomprom said.

About $30 million was invested in the creation of a pilot REM production. Funding was provided by the founders of SARECO in line with the distribution of shares in the authorized capital: JSC Kazatomprom- 51 percent and Sumitomo Corporation - 49 percent.

SARECO plant is designed to produce 1,500 tones of TREO (total of rare earth oxides), with an increase in production capacity to 3,000 tons of TREO in 2015 and to 5,000-6,000 tones of TREO a year by 2017. A significant part of the production will be the so-called heavy rare earth group, the scarcest and demanded today.

The main target market of SARECO is Japanese market.

During the grand opening of the plant heads of Kazatomprom and Sumitomo Corporation, Vladimir Shkolnik and Toru Furihata signed an agreement on the project, determining the next steps for the implementation of SARECO development strategy .

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=sumitomo kazakstan heavy rare earths&rlz=1C1BLWB_enAU524AU525&oq=sumitomo kazakstan heavy rare earths&aqs=chrome..69i57.36562j0j4&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#es_sm=93&espv=210&q=sumitomo kazakhstan heavy rare earths&start=10

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The more I research Sumitomo the more impressed I am with the credentials of NTU's new MOU partner