THIS
POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 11, 2009
"Rare
Earth Metals" is the subject that is not widely discussed in mining; however, this is the
part of industry life that is very crucial. Production of jet engines, nuclear reactors, medical
implants, electronics, etc. cannot be done without small amounts of rare earth metals. One of the key companies involved in
the business is Australian Arafura Resources,
and I took the liberty to reproduce part of
their investor presentation that
can be downloaded here.
This
picture very nicely depicts the applications of rare earth.
If you
look at the presentation – it also has a detailed description of the industry
that once again shows heavy Chinese
involvement. (In fact, not long ago, Jiangsu Eastern China Non-Ferrous
Metals Investment Holding Company has entered an equity investment agreement -
25% - with Arafura Resources).
Today we
have heard another voice from Australia: "Beijing vies to monopolise
world's future technologies" – a report in The Australian. This report has
exciting news that is probably quietly not known to many:
“After a
long, relentless campaign of price wars and export quota reductions, more than
95% of the global supply of rare earth metals -- a group of 17
"lanthanide" elements employed in hundreds of technologies ranging
from mobile phones and BlackBerrys to lasers and aviation -- is produced by
China”
And
Japan was the first to react: “China's rising strength in rare earth supply and
its apparent willingness to use that as "a 21st-century economic
weapon" have triggered what government sources in Tokyo told The Times was
an invisible tsunami of panic in Japanese industry”
Well,
this leads to some other changes that are mentioned in the report.
That is
another vivid spot on the changing Mining Picture of Asia and the World in
general
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