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Message: BLOG: US President Signs Law Requiring Report On Rare Earths In The US
Copied this post from the Quest (QUC) forum
As I mentioned elsewhere earlier this year, the US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 contained language that required that the Federal government look at the role of rare earth materials in the US defense supply chain. Earlier this week, President Obama signed this bill into law as Public Law 111-84.
Section 843 of the law requires that "not later than April 1, 2010, the Comptroller General shall submit to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives a report on rare earth materials in the supply chain of the Department of Defense". The law further requires the following to be included in the report:
- An analysis of the current and projected domestic and worldwide availability of rare earths for use in defense systems, including an analysis of projected availability of these materials in the export market;
- An analysis of actions or events outside the control of the Government of the United States that could restrict the access of the Department of Defense to rare earth materials, such as past procurements and attempted procurements of rare earth mines and mineral rights;
- A determination as to which defense systems are currently dependent on, or projected to become dependent on, rare earth materials, particularly neodymium iron boron magnets, whose supply could be restricted:
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- by actions or events identified pursuant to [the last] paragraph [...] or
- by other actions or events outside the control of the Government of the United States.
- The risk to national security, if any, of the dependencies (current or projected) identified pursuant to [the last] paragraph [...];
- Any steps that the Department of Defense has taken or is planning to take to address any such risk to national security;
- Such recommendations for further action to address the matters covered by the report as the Comptroller General considers appropriate.
The law goes on to state that "[t]he term `rare earth' means the chemical elements, all metals, beginning with lanthanum, atomic number 57, and including all of the natural chemical elements in the periodic table following lanthanum up to and including lutetium, element number 71. The term also includes the elements yttrium and scandium". It also says that "[t]he term `rare earth material' includes rare earth ores, semi-finished rare earth products, and components containing rare earth materials".
April 1, 2010 is only 5 months away. Is this going to be enough time to do a thorough-enough job to get Congress the information it needs?
We shall see.
-- Gareth Hatch
Posted by Gareth Hatch at 01:26 AM in RareMetalBlog, RareMetalNews | Permalink
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What do you think? will the government be interested in buying our 1,120 acre lanthanoid deposit? Or will they just confiscate it?
No Joke. Just looking for honest opioions
Dan
Pres 4D Mines LLC of Oregon
Posted by: Dan | 11/01/2009 at 08:21 PM
This would effect only 3 companies that currently have REE deposits that are on American soil. Those would be Rare Earth Resources with their Bear Lodge Project in Wyoming, Ucore Uranium's Bokan Mountain REE Project in Alaska and the private company, Molycorp and their Mountain Pass Project in California.
As far as I know, Ucore would be the only company that already has SIGNIFICANT KNOWLEDGE about their REE deposit, thanks to two previously done US government studies that also interestingly enough, included the detailed metallurgical studies, along with resource estimates of the mostly heavy REE deposit at Bokan when they did this extensive research in the late 1980's and 1990's. In fact, these studies were so well done that they will be converted over to NI43-101 standards, thereby saving Ucore both time and money on getting their deposit pointed towards production. But as far as 5 months being long enough to get Congress the details they seek regarding these ONSHORE US REE deposits, they'll have all they need regarding Ucore. As it's been available FOR YEARS and is another reason that when it comes to INVESTABLE AMERICAN SOIL BASED REE DEPOSITS, Ucore's Bokan Mountain is not only one of the few....it is one of the largest and best in all of North America.
Posted by: Chux03 | 11/01/2009 at 08:35 PM
Dan, there's one more: Great Western Mineral Group of Saskatoon, owns rights to their project Deep Sands in Utah, an alluvial, non hardrock source that could be mined with conventional earthmoving equipment. GW also has a production facility, GWTI (magnets and batteries) in Michigan and a refiner product operation in England.
Ucore is just getting their assays back from their new drilling currently still underway from this summer, and assuming they're good, that could be a quarry, crush, and ore shipping operation. But by whom and where will an ore processing and concentration facility be built? Maybe Neo materials could build the facility and pattern it after its operations in China. It's a big puzzle to put together, but the pieces are there.
Posted by: Tim Starns | 11/01/2009 at 09:08 PM
Scuse me, that was in response to Chux03.
Dan, call up the feds and make an offer, while you still can.
Posted by: Tim Starns | 11/01/2009 at 09:11 PM
Dan: I'm sure that there would be plenty of interest from private buyers, for proven reserves of lanthanoids in the USA - but alas, that is not my area of expertise :-)
Chux03: I think that this report will be looking at the much bigger picture here and not just on the potential output of a handful of specific US companies. It's great that there are significant reserves in the ground in the US, but that's a far cry from the mining & refining of real materials for real applications, processes which take years to set up.
The fact is that rare earths are a strategic / critical component of numerous US weapons and defense systems, and yet at this moment in time, there is no substantive mining or refining of these materials going on in the whole of North America. The US Department of Defense supply chain is therefore ultimately dependent on the People's Republic of China, from whom 97% + of rare earths are obtained.
That reliance is deemed by Congress to be a potential national security risk for the USA, even if the Department of Defense has, to date, not necessarily shared that view. THe extent of that reliance, and solutions to it, are the key issue to be addressed with this report.
Tim: refining and processing into finished metals and alloys - that's the crux of the challenge here, for sure.
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