“We must Rectify the rare earth industry, rectify the excessive and indiscriminate digging of domestic rare earth resources, rectify uncontrolled exploitation of rare earth resources, rectify the various contradictions in the development of the rare earth industry -including mining, smelting, trading and exporting. The Chinese government is duty bound to observe regulation on the sector. China’s restrictions on rare earth production and exports are meant to protect the environment and the resources, for which conduct should be above reproach.” Thus did Li Yizhong say before Chinese media on March 4 and March 6. Li Yizhong is the former minister of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). He addressed “two summits” in Beijing this week, acting as the vice chairman of the Economic Commission of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Li was very big on the rectification theme, adding: “Should the rectification of China’s rare earth industries raise objections, especially from some Western countries, these are totally baseless. China will continue to firmly pursue the integration of its rare earth metals industry.”

Obviously, because of the accusations brought against China of breaking WTO rules on rare earth exports, the Mr. Li was not shy to express his annoyance at some Western countries, such as the European Union, the United States and Japan, which launched a rare earth complaint before the  WTO against China almost exactly a year ago.

The diversification of the supply of rare earth elements has gathered a consensus and an acceptance throughout the global market. In spite of facing the rare earth WTO lawsuit, China will continue regulating the sector whether it wins or loses the trade dispute. And why is that, you ask? We must be willing to concede that the Chinese rare earth industry has been, for lack of a better term, rather a bit of a dog’s breakfast in the past few years. The country’s rare earth industry had been harmed by illegal mining, chaotic production and exports. The export quota system helps curb the messy situation softening throat-cutting competition of rare earth exports while offering other producers of non-Chinese rare earths projects a chance to boost their production.

                        

Does this mean China’s export quota system will never be removed? Perhaps, but this is not a bad thing. Due to China’s rare earth metals industry relatively small scale, it features a high concentration rate with numerous businesses. At the same time, it lacks large enterprises with core competitiveness. Self-discipline in the industry is also weak, and vicious competition exists. Moreover, there are many problems that ensued due to a lack of sound legal regulations, therefore, it is difficult to avoid that some less than honorable ‘enterprises’, operating in a way that shows a low sense of responsibility and flagrant disregard for the law will certainly be seduced by the lure of high profits. They start to gamble, foregoing any moral principles in the pursuit of profits. Therefore, the integration of the rare earth industry is essential for China. Only after integrating the currently fragmented industry, will state-owned large enterprises have the sense and ability to control productivity and prices, even without government restriction and supervision. When this is achieved, and only then, China’s export quota system could be lifted.

China is believed to remain firmly integrated within the rare earth metals industry. The central government has set targets to encouraging mergers in rare earth industry sectors to enhance the state-owned large enterprises’ global competitiveness.


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During the two meetings, the member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Li Yizhong, Minister of Industry and rare earth is a valuable and scarce mineral resources in the national economy, the defense industry, the state-of-the-art scientific purposes, it is not self-evident. The consolidation of the rare earth industry in China, for resources and environmental protection, some Western countries objection is entirely without justification.

Li Yizhong pointed out that, "eighteen large raised four modernizations simultaneous development, urbanization is on everyone's lips, and the focus of attention. Simply benign interaction with eighteen big words, industrialization and urbanization. Starting industrialization head speaking industrialized prerequisite for urbanization to urbanization create the conditions, laid the foundation. "

Li Yizhong, said rare earth is a valuable, scarce a mineral resources in the national economy, the defense industry, the state-of-the-art scientific purposes, it is not self-evident. China now accounts for about 23% of the world's large reserves, but provides 90 percent of the rare earth, "Comrade Xiaoping once said a word, the Middle East has oil, China has rare earth. Could have been our strengths, but due to various reason, this industry is a lot of confusion, to dig Luancai mining on private. "

Li Yizhong stressed, "We propose the reorganization of the rare earth industry, resource protection, environmental protection, which we should do, does not make sense for some of the objections of the Western countries. Rectify the development of rare earth industry is both a traditional, but also a strategic emerging industries. "

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Galileo, the emerging African Rare Earth exploration and development company, is pleased to announce the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) of its Glenover Rare Earth Project (“Glenover Project or the Project”) in South Africa.

Economic Highlights:
Net Present Value (“NPV”) of US$ 512 million using a rare earth oxide (REO) basket price 2 of US$60.79 per kg of 99% REO and a discount rate of 8%. (NPVs at different rates are set out below e.g. NPV of US$783 million at a discount rate of 5%).
Internal Rate of Return (“IRR”) of 34.5 % for the Project.
REO production of 167,100 t (tonnes) in mixed high-grade REO chemical product over 24-year life of mine (LOM) on current resource estimate.
Ore production rate from 2.7 Mt stockpiles at 400,000 t per year 1 to 7.
Open-pit-mine ore production from 7.1 Mt at 400,000 t per year from year 8.
Waste to ore mine stripping ratio of 2.1 to 1 from year 8.
Initial capital investment US$233M, including a contingency of US$34M but excluding $57M for deferred and sustaining capital.

                                 


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Recently, Honda took the lead in the global establishment of recycling mechanism of the nickel-hydrogen battery in hybrid vehicles, which means they applied the rare earth they extracted from the the nickel-hydrogen battery of hybrid vehicles as nickel-hydrogen battery materials to practice. In this way, they realized the first cycle of rare earth resources in the world.

Previously, Honda has extracted rare earth oxides from the waste nickel-hydrogen batteries in the factories of Heavy Chemical Industry Corp. in Japan. This time, they did further electrolysis on these oxides and successfully extracted rare earth metals which can be used directly as the material for the anode of nickel-hydrogen battery. Adopting that measure, we can refine out rare earths with its purity up to 90%. The rare earths extracted are the same as those taken from the mines, but the recovery rate of the former rare earth can reach 80% or more.

At the very beginning of March, Heavy Chemical Industry Corp. has already provided Japanese battery factory with this kind of rare earth as materials for anodes of nickel-hydrogen batteries. The rare earth used by this batch of materials came from the nickel-hydrogen batteries of 386 new Honda hybrid vehicles, which can not be used after suffered from the great earthquake in the eastern Japan. From now on, as long as the used nickel-hydrogen batteries are accumulated to a certain amount, Honda will put them all into the same recycling way.

In spite of the nickel-hydrogen batteries, Honda will spare no effort to extract rare earth from all kinds of used materials so as to promote the recycling of rare resources. Later, at the same time as Honda trying his best to develop hybrid cars, he will constantly improve reusing them, recycling mechanism and reduce the pressure of environment of the mobile society.

Honda's nickel-hydrogen battery recycling mechanism:

       
 

Rare earth prices slight fluctuations this week, mainly light, lanthanum, cerium, yttrium oxide market transaction price down. Praseodymium, neodymium, gadolinium alloys and oxides of market prices remained strong.

The gradual increase in the supply of foreign markets, has also been the resumption of production in the domestic Big Three, small and medium-sized enterprises have been looking for goods shipped in the traditional sales season in March, the market gradually active signs. Deserted February, March, manufacturers and trade slightly busy. No matter the market inquiry how lively, the industry is more than reflect, the market traded just slightly better than February, "high season" yet arrived. As far as we know, the rare earth hold stocks and more depending on the purchases and sales of inventory and the market price of some products, such as the current market oxide, praseodymium, neodymium, gadolinium oxide recent inquiries and procurement increased, the price steady bullish. Of neodymium oxide, erbium, yttrium Inquiries less cargo operators who offer slightly downstream. This week the lanthanum cerium class oxides turnover in general, the transaction price is lower than in February. Oxide, europium, terbium market turnover less stable, offer basic.

Alloy market such as praseodymium, neodymium, gadolinium-ferrous market tax price of basic remain unchanged, and individual cargo operators to raise its offer, and also not too out of the mainstream of the market price, the gadolinium iron prices slightly upstream excluding tax, dysprosium iron prices this week basically stable.
 

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Peak Resources Limited reported further improvements to beneficiation processes for the Ngualla Rare Earth Project in Tanzania. The ability to concentrate mineralisation at an early stage prior to acid leach recovery will have a significant and positive impact on costs and support Peak’s target to be a low cost producer.

The optimisation of the beneficiation process effectively reduces the mass of feed to be treated by the acid leach recovery process by 43% compared to the scoping study assumptions. This will lead to significantly lower capital and operating costs for the operation.

The latest test work shows that conventional magnetic separation and flotation techniques reduce the mass of the feed mineralisation by 78% through the rejection of relatively unmineralised barite and iron oxides.

Reducing the amount of material processed at the acid leach recovery stage has a significant impact on operating costs by reducing sulphuric acid consumption – the major constituent of reagent costs. The scoping study completed in early December 2012 estimated that the acid plant and acid leach recovery circuit make up 53% of total operating costs.

The reduction in volume treated will also reduce capital costs as a smaller plant will be required for the same amount of product. The acid leach recovery circuit and the acid plant together constitute 27% of total project capital costs as estimated in the scoping study.

The beneficiation process increases the grade of the feed over 3 fold from 5.3% REO* to 16.9% REO for this composite sample.

The cost reductions will be quantified in a revision of the scoping study and economic assessment to be completed in Q2 2013. The revised study will also use a new optimised mine schedule based on the new Mineral Resource estimate and model that is on schedule for completion by the end of March 2013.

Peak Resources Managing Director Richard Beazley said “Ngualla continues to improve with each milestone. We are already in the lower quartile in terms of operating costs, and also have one of the lowest capital costs of any rare earth project. This new test work will allow us to reduce costs even further and supports our assertion that Ngualla is the most commercially attractive rare earth project around.”

                   


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Cavan Ventures Inc. is pleased to announce that it has been granted an option to acquire four prospective new mining properties covering graphite occurrences and with a potential for rare earth elements.

The four properties are located in Quebec, Canada, and are all easily accessible by paved or gravel roads and close to infrastructures.

The Pierre Riche North and South claims are located at about 130 km southwest of Saguenay-Chicoutimi, and about 70 km north-northwest of La Tuque. The Trans Canadian railroad line used by the Canadian National Railroad passes just 45 km south of the claim groups.

Pierre Riche North comprises 31 map-staked claims covering 1,705 hectares (4,213 acres). The property covers granitic gneiss, anorthosite, calcsilicate rocks, paragneiss and metasediment. Mafic gneisses contain disseminated sulphides and pockets of pyrite and graphite. Historically, the graphite flakes were mistaken for molybdenite. Anomalous values of copper, nickel, zinc, vanadium and manganese were obtained from a 0.80 m long channel sample.

Pierre Riche South comprises 11 map staked claims covering 605 hectares (1,495 acres), with the same lithologies as on the North claims. Anomalous values in copper, nickel, manganese, strontium and barium were obtained from one-meter long channel samples. This property presents an excellent potential for graphite in flakes and rare earth elements in pegmatite and mafic gneiss.

Two additional mining properties are located in the Upper Gatineau River region in the western part of Quebec, and about 70 km south of the Company’s Pythonga Lake Rare Earth Element project.

The Cawood and Saint-Marie properties are located at about 65 km north of Ottawa, and accessible by paved roads. Infrastructure in this region is excellent for a mining operation. Cawood comprises 10 map staked claims covering an area of 550 hectares (136 acres). This property has potential for graphite, mica, apatite and rare earth elements. It is located in the Maniwaki Metasedimentary Basin, well known for its graphite deposits and base metal occurrences (Pb-Zn) associated to calcitic and dolomitic marbles. In the past, numerous small graphite occurrences were mined by open-pits which are still accessible.

The Sainte-Marie property comprises 11 map staked claims covering an area of 605 hectares (1,495 acres). Several graphite occurrences exist on the property and there is also potential for rare earth elements. Six graphite occurrences were studied during a mapping program. Most have returned values higher than 3% graphite in quartz-feldspar gneisses of the H Unit. One occurrence returned 25% graphite over one meter in a shear zone.

The four mining properties were acquired from three well-renowned prospectors. CAVAN can earn a 70% interest in the four mining properties by issuing the optionors a total of 1,500,000 shares over a period of two years and making two cash payments totalling $35,000 of which $15,000 is payable upon signing. The Company must spend a minimum of $60,000.00 during the first year of the agreement. Claims are subject to a 2% net smelter return of which the Company may buy back 1% for the sum of $1,500,000 and has the first right of refusal to purchase the balance of the royalty as well as the remaining 30% interest. The acquisition of the claims is subject to acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange.


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Why do some people take a risk to extract rare earth illegally? And what impacts will illegal extraction bring to the environment and residents nearby?

This area began rare earth extraction since some time between May and June last year, according to people living in the neighbor. The illegal work site cover an area of 4 to 5 acres,there are physic permeating separation pool and reaction pool, where fills with acid liquids like oxalic acid, semi-finished product of extracted rare earth was put nearby. Exhausted gas and liquid generated by chemical reaction are actually been discharged directly, red liquid can be detected everywhere is some cannels in lower reaches. Residents complain that vegetables have been polluted.

It is said that, the extraction of rare earth is rather complex, besides, the content of rare earth is quite small in raw ores. Even though, rare earth is a kind of material that is of strategic importance to a country, in addition the price of rare earth is very high, that is why many people will take risk to extract rare earth secretly. But the extract consumes a large number of water. To make it easier to get water and exhaust waste water, work sites are usually located near water source or reservoir.

Dr. Wen of Applied Chemistry Department , Shenzhen University said that waste water exhausted after the extraction of rare earth contains acid and waste residue which are toxic and could be harmful to peripheral environment.   

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In the last 20 years, the importance of rare earth elements has skyrocketed due to three main factore:

High demand: An increasing global demand for new products and emerging technologies that use rare earth elements(REE).
Uncertain supply: China, the world's largest source of rare earth materials at the present time, has begun to reduce quotas on its REE exports, combat smuggling and also close some of its major mines. Currently, China provides over 90 percent of the world's total output of rare earths.
No substitutions: The unique electronic, optical and magnetic characteristics of these elements cannot be matched by any other metals or synthetic substitutes.

Combined, these three factors have raised a growing level of concern that other rare earth mining sites need to be found outside of China, explored and brought online in short order.

There are 17 classified rare earth elements and prices vary widely with heavy rare earths historically commanding significantly higher prices than light rare earths. Several of these elements can fetch extremely high prices depending on their scarcity and commercial applications. Europium, terbium and dysprosium have been recently priced in the range of $1,400 - $3,500/kg. HREE prices are likely to remain significantly higher than recent historical levels, given the fact that few new sources of supply for these materials will be available before 2015.

Less expensive rare earths like lanthanum and cerium (the prices of which currently hover around US $20-30/kg) are extensively used in modern technology, such as the manufacturing of catalytic converters that automobiles require.

Many of the high tech devices enjoyed by the western world need rare earths to work. Consumer smartphones, TVs, batteries, computers, medical equipment, even some of the critical components in nuclear reactors depend on rare earth elements for their operation.

This widespread need for REE in global manufacturing ensures a constant commercial hunger for these metals for the foreseeable future. While prices have been dropping since peaking in July 2011, they still remain well above historical levels.

                


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There are 17 elements found on the earth that are classified as rare earth elements (REE). While the word "rare” may make you think that these elements are scarce, they are in fact found all over our planet but typically in small amounts. The term "rare earth” comes from their initial discovery in which only tiny portions of these minerals could be isolated from larger quantities of still more common elements.

Today, "rare earth” is used to describe any of the 15 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers from 57 to 71 (called "lanthanides”) and the chemically similar elements scandium and yttrium.

The global demand for rare earths has increased as more uses for these elements are found. Today there are hundreds of uses for REE, ranging from high tech (lasers, camera lenses, computer memory modules, x-ray machines), energy (batteries, lamps, superconductors) and industrial (aerospace, caustic cleaning agents, specialized glass) applications.

A List of All Rare Earth Elements

(Remark: Z = Atomic Number)
Elements 29, 61 = Rare Earths
Elements 57 – 60, 62 = Light Rare Earth Elements
Elements 39, 63 – 71 = Heavy Rare Earth Elements

Rare earths elements are also being used for a growing number of applications. At the forefront of this wave of discovery are new technologies being developed for computer science uses, industrial engineering, renewable energy sciences and military applications.

Here are a few examples of how rare earth elements are being utilized in the world today:

Electronics:
Television screens, computers, cell phones, silicon chips, monitor displays, long-life rechargeable batteries, camera lenses, light emitting diodes (LEDs), compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), baggage scanners, marine propulsion systems.

Manufacturing:
High strength magnets, metal alloys, stress gauges, ceramic pigments, colorants in glassware, chemical oxidizing agent, polishing powders, plastics creation, as additives for strengthening other metals, automotive catalytic converters.

Medical Science:
Portable x-ray machines, x-ray tubes, magnetic resonance imagery (MRI) contrast agents, nuclear medicine imaging, cancer treatment applications, and for genetic screening tests, medical and dental lasers.

Technology:
Lasers, optical glass, fiber optics, masers, radar detection devices, nuclear fuel rods, mercury-vapor lamps, highly reflective glass, computer memory, nuclear batteries, high temperature superconductors.

Renewable Energy:
Hybrid automobiles, wind turbines, next generation rechargeable batteries, biofuel catalysts.

Other interesting facts about uses for rare earths:
The rare earth element europium is being used as a way to identify legitimate bills for the Euro bill supply and to dissuade counterfeiting.

An estimated 1 kg of rare earth elements can be found inside a typical hybrid automobile.

Holmium has the highest magnetic strength of any element and is used to create extremely powerful magnets. This application can reduce the weight of many motors.

                    


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