Posted on 12/29/2010 7:15:34 AM PST by george76
China has raised fresh international trade concerns after slashing export quotas on rare earths minerals, risking action from the United States at the World Trade Organization.
China, which produces about 97 percent of the global supply of rare earth minerals, cut its export quotas by 35 percent for the first half of 2011 versus a year ago, saying it wanted to preserve ample reserves, but warned against basing its total 2011 export quota on the first half figures.
U.S. makers of high-tech products such as Apple Inc's iPads, along with Japanese companies have been scrambling to secure reliable supplies of the minerals outside of China as Beijing steadily reduces export allocations.
Japan's Sony Corp said China's move to cut export quotas was a hindrance to free trade and that it would work to reduce its reliance on Chinese supplies.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Just another example of this country depending too much of foreign supply’s
The batteries in the Prius and other cars need this rare earth. Most of it comes from China.
Isn’t it great the way our leadership continually makes us dependent of foreign countries?
What "action"? Begging? Bowing?
Is there really anyone afraid of any U.S. "action" (other than words) from the Obozo admin?
the U.S. needs to ramp up its domestic production of both light and heavy rare earths immediately. Idaho, Montana and Colorado were mentioned in the GAO report as states where there was an availability of rare earths.
http://www.energy.gov/news/documents/criticalmaterialsstrategy.pdf
A US company, Molycorp, is trying to re-open the world’s largest rare earth mine (in the USA!), despite the regulatory war against it by the Obama Regime.
PEAK RARE EARTH MAGNETS!
hahaha
Recently there were stories of the those mines being sold to foreign companies - it might even be a Russian company. Right now I think they are owned by a Canadian company...
The Communist / Green / UN agenda 21 at work
Molycorp owns a rare-earth mine in Mountain Pass, California. The Mountain Pass facility has not mined or milled rare earth oxides since 2002.
But even if they make it to market in the next 12 to 18 months, Molycorp’s deposits are skewed to light rare earths such as cerium and lanthanum, meaning major holes in the supply chain will remain.
The shares of America’s only rare earth miner — MOLYCORP (Symbol: MCP ) and the Market Vectors Rare Earth Strategy ETF (Symbol:REMX) are going through the roof and beyond as China puts a QUOTA on its rare earth exports.
Uranium One holds the licenses for a Utah uranium mine and a uranium mine in northeast Wyoming.
Molycorp Secures Last of Permits Needed for Construction Start of $531 Million Rare Earth Manufacturing Supply Chain Project
Project Will Support An Average of 700 Jobs Per Day in Construction and 200-300 Permanent Jobs When Completed
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Molycorp, Inc. (NYSE: MCP), the Western Hemisphere’s only producer of rare earths, announced that it has secured the last of several environmental permits necessary to begin construction of its new, state-of-the-art rare earth manufacturing facility at Mountain Pass, California. Securing the permits is a major milestone in Molycorp’s $531 million project to construct a complete rare earth mine-to-magnets manufacturing supply chain in the U.S.
You need to go to the Molycorp website and look at their historical timeline of events.
It would appear that Molycorp got their new 35 year permit back in 2004.
When Molycorp began to seek the new permit in the early 90s they indicated that the first 5 years of the permit would be for expanding, that 25 years would be for operating, and the last 5 years would be for decommissioning.
Probably in part because one of the Rare Earth refining products is thorium.
Watch China tell the WTO to stuff it.
Thanks, that was it. Is Uranium considered a rare earth or does it fall under some other category?
“But even if they make it to market in the next 12 to 18 months, Molycorp’s deposits are skewed to light rare earths such as cerium and lanthanum, meaning major holes in the supply chain will remain.”
Interesting.
What about the Australian rare earth company LYNAS?
Nope, that was uranium. Uranium is not a "rare earth."
rare earths...Any of the abundant metallic elements of atomic number 57 through 71.
Any of a large class of chemical elements including scandium (atomic number 21), yttrium (39), and the 15 elements from 57 (lanthanum) to 71 (see lanthanides).
http://www.answers.com/topic/rare-earth-element
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