Rare Earth Elements

Today’s Discussion:

February 22, 2012  

 

Activists in Malaysia have filed in court to try to
stop development of a rare Earth plant there by Lynas. The handling of
radioactive byproducts of rare earth mining is the posed concern of the group.
The Malaysian government approved the plant just a month ago.

 

Lynas has been moving ahead quickly with the plan
to develop a rare earth processing plant in Malaysia, which could significantly
impact China’s control of the market. Reports say that the new plant be capable
of processing about one third of global demand and could grow from there.

 

Molycorp is now facing some legal scrutiny, after
a class action suit was filed against the company accusing it of making “false
and misleading statements.” Coincidentally, we had just recently pointed
out (our opinion) that some of Molycorp’s expectations seemed overly ambitious.
The suit alleges that Molycorp failed to disclose that development and expansion
of the Mountain Pass mine was not progressing on schedule and that the company would
not reach its rare earth production rates.