Rare Earths

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.

Rare Earth Elements Mined (Data from 2003)

Country	Annual Production - Metric Tons
China	92,000
USA	5,000
India	2,700
Russia (And former CIS)	2,000
Malaysia	450
Sri Lanka	120

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