Rare Earths
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Rare Earth's Update – October 13, 2011 Greenland Minerals and Energy Ltd. Announced that they have overcome some technical problems associated with processing their rare earth deposit and can now begin to develop their massive Kvanefjeld uranium and rare earth project. The breakthrough, on the rare earth side, came when they developed a process to increase their concentrates by 15%. The project is now said to be cost effective and has been given the green light to go ahead. This should give another source of the rare earth minerals, outside of China. Meanwhile, the US's large rare earth miner, Molycorp, has been quiet about their developments in improving their beneficiation and mining of their high grade deposit at the Mountain Pass Mine, although I have heard that they have made significant developments in this area. I would suppose that they are refining their methods, before any announcements are made. Charles Kubach, Mine-Engineer.Com Rare earths consist of a group of elements and minerals. These would be comprised of oxides of a series of 15 metallic elements, Cerium, Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Gadolinium, Holmium, Lanthanum, Lutetium, Neodymium, Praseodymium, Samarium, Terbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Yittrium. These elements are not rare in the Earth's crust, but occurrences of economic concentrations are rare. The rare earth metals resemble one another very closely in chemical and physical properties, thus making it most difficult to separate them. The rare earths are constituents of certain minerals, especially monazite, bastnaesite, and xenotime. Processing these minerals to extract the desired elements is difficult, at best. In the US, only one commercial deposit is found at Mountain Pass CA (Molycorp - currently owned by Chevron Oil), near the Nevada California state line. The largest producer of rare earths is China, by far dwarfing all other countries. (see table below) It is estimated that China has reserves of 100,000,000 metric tons of rare earth mineral ore. These rare earth mineral deposits in China are world class deposits, high grade and easily mined.
Some of the major uses for rare earths are metallurgy, petrochemical, auto catalysts, glass, ceramics, agriculture and magnet manufacture. Rare earth elements are used in high efficiency batteries used in many portable electronic units, such PDA's. This is an expected growth market for rare earths, possibly replacing the phosphors that are used in CRT displays, as CRT's are being replaced with LCD and Plasma displays. Another area of growth for rare earths, is their use in energy efficient lighting, as energy continues to become more expensive, and the need to maximize efficient utilization becomes more cost beneficial. China, with the majority of rare earth deposits, will rule the rare earth supply markets for many years, unless a world class deposit is discovered elsewhere. China is the largest consumer of rare earth's with Japan second, the US following in 3d place and Europe is the 4th largest consumer of rare earths. Charles Kubach, Mine-Engineer.Com |