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Matamec Explorations Inc. is a junior mining exploration company whose main focus is in developing the Kipawa heavy rare earths deposit.

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Message: John Kaiser on REE

John Kaiser on REE

posted on Sep 22, 2009 01:09PM

A bit of a read but wou will like what he has to say about REE

It applies to us very well

http://www.stockhouse.com/Bullboards/MessageDetail.aspx?p=0&m=27472785&s=AVL&t=LIST&l=0&r=0

Here's a snippet:

D.P: Now you are mentioning this rare earth mania, a lot

of rare earth stocks have just flown in the last six months.

It kind of reminds me of uranium two or three years ago

when uranium went through the roof and then all of a sudden

just died. We saw six companies become 600 and

many of those 600 have since disappeared. Are you now

suggesting that rare earth could fly for some time?

J.K: I will say there are similarities and differences between

uranium and the rare earth elements. The similarity

is that uranium itself is less than 5% of the cost of running

a nuclear power plant. So it is quite insensitive to price.

You are going to need your nuclear fuels no matter what

the price is. The rare earth elements are like that too. So

they can see their prices go up substantially if suddenly

there is a shortage. But unlike uranium, there are not a lot

of rare earth deposits in the world. There are lots of rare

earth showings, little veins here and there, but the major

systems are few and far between, especially enriched with

rare earth elements.

There are lots of uranium deposits all over the world, so it

was predictable that when the uranium prices shot up because

of a shortage of supply, there were going to be hundreds

of companies all boasting pounds of uranium in the

ground. There is another important difference between

uranium and rare earth. With uranium – you can predict

future demand. The predictions are correct that there is

an imbalance and a lot more uranium deposits have to go

into production to meet the demand as these 40 to 70

power plants on the drawing board eventually come on

stream. Rare earths are different as their special properties

open up material science research opportunities. If

these raw materials are actually available, the work will go

into finding out what these things can do, developing

commercial applications and setting plans to commercialize

them. You could see the market for these rare earth

elements blossom in ways that are unimaginable.

I think the rare earth mania can go completely insane over

the next while because you cannot quantify the limit of

how big this could get, especially when you start controlling

the downstream applications – the alloys and all the

other special metals you can create by adding rare earths.

You can’t add uranium to very much except nuclear

bombs and that’s not a viable business, but with rare

earths you can. So I expect the mania to produce extraordinary

valuations for those companies which control

these deposits, not because you can do the math and get

a net present value calculation that’s worth $1 billion or $2

billion, but because the strategic value of long-term control

of these raw materials is going to lie in the imagination

of the visionaries behind the big, large corporations

that are controlling the economic future of the world.

D.P: That’s good preliminary, but now we get to the meat

of the matter and that’s getting some names to watch. So

with the gold sector, which would be some of your favorite

picks at this time and also in the rare earth metals? Of

interest, seeing as we’ve just spent some time in Ketchikan,

Alaska, what would be your thoughts at this time for

one junior explorer – Ucore Uranium?

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