What happens if China restricts rare earths supply ?

[Black Orchid]

It was me who mentioned shares and I said it basically tongue in cheek.

[Juliar]

OK BO, but successful buying of shares requires a clear understanding of the FACTS surrounding the case and the ability to see into the future.

So just simplistic armchair arm waving has no place when cold hard cash is involved.

Now Lynas is recovering from the heavy hands in Malaysia as it decides on an acid leaching plant in Kalgoolie. Won't the Greenies try to ban it ?




Australia's Lynas picks Kalgoorlie for rare earth processing site
Reuters - DECEMBER 9, 2019 / 2:05 PM / UPDATED 5 HOURS AGO


FILE PHOTO: A Lynas Corp worker walks past sacks of rare earth concentrate waiting to be shipped to Malaysia, at Mount Weld, northeast of Perth, Australia August 23, 2019. Picture taken August 23. REUTERS/Melanie Burton

Australian rare earths miner Lynas Corp said on Monday it had picked outback town Kalgoorlie as the site for a new initial ore processing plant to extract low-level radioactivity from materials to be shipped to Malaysia for final treatment.

In a statement, the world’s only major producer of rare earth metals outside China said it the new planned cracking and leaching plant in Western Australia forms part of a $500 million growth strategy to boost production by 2025.

After lengthy tensions with Kuala Lumpur over environmental concerns about its operations in Malaysia, Lynas was given four years by the country to build a plant to remove low-level radioactivity from material it ships to the Southeast Asian nation for processing into elements vital for products ranging from fighter jets to wind farms.

Kalgoorlie is about a four-hour drive from Lynas’ Mt. Weld mine, where it currently trucks rare earth concentrate to the coast for shipment to a processing facility in Malaysia. The site was selected ahead of two other shortlisted areas, also in the Goldfields region.


“We also acknowledge the support from the Western Australian Government and the Australian Government to enhance the critical minerals industry in the Kalgoorlie region,” Lynas Chief Executive Officer Amanda Lacaze said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Lynas also said it was looking at options for upstream solvent extraction in Western Australia.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lyna ... SKBN1YD07I

[Juliar]

Now just about everything you could want to know about rare earths.


Rare earth stocks on the ASX: The Ultimate Guide
By Danica Cullinane - September 11, 2019


China controls around 80% of the world's rare earth production.

As the use of rare earth elements in emerging technologies becomes increasingly significant in today’s modern world, investors are being drawn to ASX stocks involved in the minerals.

At present, China controls the bulk of its production capacity and is dangling it like a carrot in a trade war with the United States.

However, the US isn’t keen to play along and is, instead, looking to other nations to help maintain its supply of these critical minerals.

As the second top producer of rare earth element, Australia is in a prime position to take advantage of the situation, with ambitions to become an international “powerhouse” via its Critical Minerals Strategy.

Federal defence minister Linda Reynolds also recently called rare earth element’s continuity and guarantee of supply an issue of “national importance”.

So, do these minerals really give China the bargaining power? Or, will this be the push Australia needs to up its game and take a larger share of the market?

What are rare earth elements?
Rare earth element, also referred to as rare earth minerals, are a group of 17 metals made up of 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium.

Lanthanides are the chemical elements with atomic numbers 57 to 71 on the periodic table and include (in table order): lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium.


Rare earth elements minerals periodic table metals. Rare earth minerals consist of 17 elements from the periodic table.

Scandium and yttrium fall under the same umbrella because they tend to occur in the same ore deposits and have similar chemical properties.

The elements are also often found in minerals with thorium and, sometimes, uranium.

The name itself is deceiving as these minerals are not “rare”, but just rather hard to find in economic quantities and complex to extract, making mineable concentrations less common than most other ores.

According to Geoscience Australia, they have “unique catalytic, metallurgical, nuclear, electrical, magnetic and luminescent properties”.

The group can be divided into three classifications – light, medium and heavy elements.

With resources typically reported as rare earth oxides (REO).

For the full exciting story read on here

https://smallcaps.com.au/rare-earth-sto ... ate-guide/

[Outlaw Yogi]

Good topic ...I've mentioned this potential quazi-crisis a couple of times, but I don't think most realised the importance of the substances.
10 ... 15 ... ? I forget how many years ago the Pentagon kicked up a bit of a stink about the technological and strategic liabilities of letting China gain a near monopoly over the industry when U$A closed their last RE mine. Someone in the White House at the time noticed/validated the issue/problem and had a mine in California re-opened after closure due to enviro blunder.

I've only got to play with the neodymium-iron-boron magnets - "Permanent magnets"... they're quite amazing compared with a standard steel magnet. Ordinary/standard magnet is brittle .. chips and cracks when dropped - all molecules align North-South giving the polarity.
These neodymium magnets are far stronger magnetically, very strong alloy matrix so you can cut, drill or machine to fit whatever you like. Truly a profound bit of modern metallurgy.
Apparently 2 neodymium block magnets .. look 6-8' long 5-6 ' wide x about 2-3' deep are that strong they come with warnings about not letting them touch (can't separate by hand) not get fingers between them and that one will fly across a room to get to another.

Yeah China could put a dent in the industry, but it'll adapt.
Probably should call China's bluff on this.
But then I reckon we should tell China to go phuk y'self every time they bung on a tantrum .. the psychopaths and megalomaniacs running the place need to be told "We don't want to "play"/deal with you anymore. The population would still want our products but they'd have to pay through the nose for it.
China needs our resources more than we need theirs .. and I reckon we (the Westernised world) could get by better without theirs then they could ours.

[Outlaw Yogi]

The elements are also often found in minerals with thorium and, sometimes, uranium.

I suspected that might be the case .. and suggests from my self taught geology that these RE elements (in tiny traces) would exist in most granite. Granite usually has thorium in it and sometimes still uranium - thorium is decomposed uranium .. eventually it'll decompose to lead.

[BigP]

BigP sorry if I ruffled your feathers but I concentrate on the FACTS rather than fantasy.

Shares are unforgiving and so an unwise purchase can cost lots when it fails to deliver.

And what facts would they be. ?

Any investment has its risks, if everyone had your aversion to investment risk the economy would shut down

[BigP]

The elements are also often found in minerals with thorium and, sometimes, uranium.

I suspected that might be the case .. and suggests from my self taught geology that these RE elements (in tiny traces) would exist in most granite. Granite usually has thorium in it and sometimes still uranium - thorium is decomposed uranium .. eventually it'll decompose to lead.

Lead ? lol

You've found a new friend J ,,

[Juliar]

BigP seems a bit annoyed at being pushed off his pedestal.

BigP I merely search for and find the FACTS and report them because FACTS are what readers want to know.

The FACTS are that rare earths is a dirty business as can be seen in Mongolia and China can easily swamp the world supply so startups in Australia are tiny minnows swimming with sharks.

Bu the new alliance with the USA is promising as the USA is immensely powerful and can easily provide the finance required.

LYNAS has had trouble with Malaysia complaining about their processing of rare earths there and so LYNAS is setting up some sort of preliminary acid leaching of rare earths in Kalgoolie.

LYNAS is also setting up something in TEXAS.

So great care is required in selecting any rare earth shares.

[Juliar]

Will Australia supply the USA ?

Oddly, one Oz rare earths company has had to get funding from private Chinese sources and the subsidiary of a Chinese state owned enterprise, and will sell into the Chinese market if the demand is there. So this is not the binary view the government is selling.




Australia, US ink agreement on rare earths to tackle China's dominance
By Hamish Hastie November 19, 2019 — 2.55pm

Australia and the US' respective geoscience agencies have inked a formal agreement on critical minerals supply in an effort to weaken China's stranglehold on rare earths essential for modern technologies.

The supply of critical minerals has been creeping up the priority list of both the US and Australian governments in recent years as they grow wary of China's control over most parts of their supply chains.


Lynas's Mount Weld mine in Western Australia, the richest known rare earths deposit in the world.

Rare earth elements are a series of metals used in modern electronics and defence equipment but much of their mining and processing occurs in China, which has in the past choked supply during periods of geopolitical tension.

On Tuesday, Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan announced an agreement had been signed between Geoscience Australia and the United States Geological Survey, which will now assess each country’s resource potential and develop new supply.

Mr Canavan said the partnership would see Australia feed critical mineral-hungry countries such as the US.

"Growing global demand for critical minerals means there is huge scope for Australia to develop secure and stable supply chains to meet the growing demand for critical minerals in key economies such as the US," he said.

“The US has a need for critical minerals and Australia’s abundant supplies makes us a reliable and secure international supplier of a wide range of those, including rare earth elements."

The agreement follows on from an informal agreement between the agencies signed 12 months ago and will feed into the federal government's critical minerals strategy released earlier this year.

West Australian rare earth miners such as Northern Minerals and Lynas Corporation, which runs the biggest rare earths mine outside of China, joined government delegations to the US to discuss critical mineral supply.

Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA chief executive Paul Everingham said the agreement could underpin the next wave of WA’s resources sector development.

“This partnership has the potential to lead to the development of new rare earths mines in Western Australia and further trade between the two countries,” he said.

“It recognises that Australia, the US, and much of the western world, does not have reliable supplies of the key minerals used in the technologies that are likely to shape our world over the coming decades."

Association of Mining and Exploration Companies chief executive Warren Pearce said the agreement would unlock greater geological knowledge of the two countries.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/compani ... 53c0s.html

[Juliar]

Fortunately ScoMo is good buddies with Trumpy.



Rare earths miner slams 'complicit' manufacturers over China predicament
By Hamish Hastie October 9, 2019 — 9.13am

The world's biggest miner of rare earths outside of China has slammed manufacturers for supporting a distorted market in the hunt for cheaper materials that led to the super power's supply chain domination and left the rest of the world vulnerable.

Speaking at the Perth USAsia Centre's Critical Minerals conference on Tuesday, Lynas Corp chief executive Amanda Lacaze described the stark differences in China and the rest of the world's approach to rare earths over the past 30 years.


Lynas Corp chief executive Amanda Lacaze has placed part of the blame over rare earths supply on manufacturers. CREDIT:IAN TEH

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements essential in most modern technology applications from renewables to defence equipment.

More than 80 per cent of the world's supply comes from China and the country's stranglehold becomes stronger the further down the supply chain it goes.

The White House is worried China may move to block global rare earths supply in response to heightened trade tensions between the countries, which could have serious security implications given their necessity in defence technology.

Ms Lacaze said China's domination of the supply chain came from a concerted effort by its government and industry.

"Thirty years ago China was not in this position. Chinese industry had the resource, but not the downstream steps," she said.

"With government policy targeted at delivering significant value to the Chinese economy and jobs in the high employment downstream steps, China has executed an integrated strategy with discipline and much success."

She said the rest of the world's supply chain was 'fragmented' and pointed the finger at European and US manufacturers who had put their own businesses at risk for the sake of cheaper materials.

"For three decades, outside-China manufacturers, especially in Europe and the US, have been complicit in supporting a strategy that has delivered a concentrated and at times distorted market, which can ultimately threaten their businesses," she said.

"The risk created by this distorted market will only increase as applications continue to grow."

In order to combat China's advantages, Ms Lacaze said countries such as Australia and the US could learn from it.

"China has given us a perfect case study of how governments can support the rare earths industry, they put their support behind a few large players and have insourced the technology to be successful," she said.

"Outside China the market is distorted and open to influence, therefore simply relying on market forces is unlikely to be successful. Support for industry may come in the form of funding or it may be in the form of policy support.

"I would argue the key role of government is to provide a stable operating environment and to implement policies that support industry growth."

United States Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center director Steven Fortier said regardless of the country, if minerals were concentrated on one country it always posed a risk.

He said heavy rare earths separation and metal alloy production should be a priority for governments.

"Those kinds of capabilities need to be identified, supported and facilitated in some way," he said.

"We have to be able to diversify the supply chain so that no one country or company has leverage over defence systems for Western nations. It's just a risk we can't afford to take, whether it's likely or not."

Dr Fortier said both Lynas and Northern Minerals, another WA rare earths miner, had visited him at the White House to brief the executive branch and members of the National Security Council.

A University of Sydney US Studies Centre report on rare earths released on Wednesday said it would not be in China’s interests to impose an embargo on rare earths, because the last time it did it substitutes were found.

"The result would be the stimulation of competitive rare earths production and substitution," report author David Uren said.

"China’s rare earths companies are aware of the risks of pushing prices too high, because they’ve done it before in 2010. It seriously damaged the market.

"Total sales took a decade to recover, and for some rare earth elements, the damage has been permanent as substitutes have been found."


COMMENTS

anonymony 2 MONTHS AGO
How can Western governments so blindly let China control a strategic sector of the mining industry like rare earth minerals.
Seems like a few people are asleep at the wheel. Don't you worry about China.

pjiang 2 MONTHS AGO
Actually China has learned from USA how the government should support strategic industry. To protect its advantage in 5G, US has banned Huwawei and has the current trade war in China to disrupt the Chinese economic and technological advancing. Historically, the last major trade wars such as US and Japan have successfully put Toshiba behind its US competitors since. Lynas is Australian owned and the government should support such such business of strategic national competitive significance

Heibrin 2 MONTHS AGO
Here is the biggest issue with anyone trying to catch up to China in terms of rare-earth production: unlike Western countries China's government couldn't give two hoots about the environment, so those mining companies get all the processing approvals they want, whereas in the West companies are battling to get environmental approvals.
Unless that changes, either through relaxing existing requirements or developing better extraction and processing methods no-one will be able to compete with them.

DE Murphy 2 MONTHS AGO
But THIS is capitalism, increase shortages to ramp up prices and make a killing.
Not to worry, we're giving away our rare earths in toto to the Americans, who'll screw the world as well. No quarantine of these precious minerals for WA or Australia! Must be a coincidence this speech was made here at a US business conference ...