Critical Commodities

Recent Site Wide Posts

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: Chinese Production of Rare Earths: The Real Crisis – 340th Edition   1 month, 3 weeks ago · View

  The Chinese rare earth mining industry has angered the officials of the Chinese government in charge of meeting the environmental requirements of the current five-year plan. Of this we can be certain from the number of breathless stories now proliferating on the Web. I only urge those of you who are still rational to note that [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: Chinese Restructuring Of The Rare Earth Mining Industry Goes Into High Gear – 337th Edition   2 months, 1 week ago · View

  Yesterday I reported on why I think Baotou Rare Earths has announced its creation of a plan to stockpile 300,000 tonnes of rare earth ore concentrates during the next three years (i.e., by 2013). A colleague of mine sent me an article this morning (morning, that is in Shanghai) that explains the actions of Baotou REEs, [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: Rare Earth News From Shanghai – 336th Edition   2 months, 1 week ago · View

  I’m in Shanghai at the CLSA China Forum 2010, and I just saw this story, ” Baotou Rare Earth Kicks off Reservation Plan ,”  on a locally produced web news site in English translation. It basically states that China’s largest producer of rare earths, which is identified as Baotou Rare Earths, is going to build a stockpile of [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: Setting The Record Straight – 330th Edition   3 months ago · View

  Earlier this week a conference was held in Washington D.C. on Technology and Rare Earth Metals, which I was unable to attend due to other commitments. I was, however, contacted during the meeting by a number of people asking for clarification on some comments made by Dudley Kingsnorth, the Australian rare earths specialist. Mr. Kingsnorth apparently took issue, while on [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: The Supplying Of Canadian Rare Metal Resources To The USA: Washington’s Perspective – 329th Edition   3 months ago · View

  Elected politicians in Washington, D.C. have historically and traditionally given very little thought to Canada, except when they were forced to give Canadians a voice in a decision, either because of American politics or a foreign war or the threat of war. One of the very few times for example, that Canada was mentioned in the American [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: Paul Volcker On Rare Earths, Green Jobs And All That – 327th Edition   3 months ago · View

  I spoke in San Francisco two days ago on the market fundamentals of the “rare metals in the age of technology” at a conference for clients of the Hong Kong powerhouse brokerage, CLSA. The keynoter that day at the CLSA San Francisco Forum 2010 was Paul Volcker whose vigor and keen intellect at 83 put many [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: From The 2010 Rare Earths Summit In Beijing – 334th Edition   3 months ago · View

  I’m in Beijing, China, where I spoke yesterday at the Asian Metal “Rare Earths Summit 2010″. I sort of stumbled through my presentation, because I was absolutely distracted by the candor of the speakers from the Chinese rare earth mining, refining, and end-user industries. Considering the volume of nonsense being broadcast outside of China by stock [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: Molycorp’s SEC Filing For Its Proposed IPO Answers Some Longstanding Questions – 333th Edition   3 months ago · View

  Last Friday (04/16/10), privately held Molycorp, the owner/operator of America’s largest and most recently mined deposits of light rare earths, filed the legally required notice that it will have an initial public offering of its shares within the allowed statutory period after such a public announcement. The filing, as I read it, answers one question that [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: Interview with Gary Billingsley & Gareth Hatch – 332th Edition   3 months ago · View

  I recently returned from Los Angeles where I attended a conference put on by Infocast on rare metals and their supply chain. After the meeting I had a chance to interview Gary Billingsley of Great Western Minerals, and Gareth Hatch, of Dexter Magnetic Technologies and the RareMetalBlog, on the Steenkampskraal mine in South Africa and the [...]

• jacklifton wrote a new blog post: New Science Article On Shortages In Rare Earths – 331th Edition   3 months ago · View

  The March 26, 2010 edition of Science included a news article by Robert Service titled, “ Nations Move to Head Off Shortages of Rare Earths “. The abstract for the article states that:
  

  In recent decades, rare earth elements (REEs)—lanthanum (element 57) through lutetium (element 71) along with scandium and yttrium—have become vital to a host of novel electronics and [...]