Lifton reviews Professor Dudley Kingsnorth - The Rare Earths Industry - Marking Time

Rare Earth Deposits & Mining / Rare Earth Exploration, Mining, Processing, & Uses

Date posted: 08/14/14

Jack Lifton reviews Professor Dudley Kingsnorth - The Rare Earths Industry - Marking Time, of the Australian Curtin University in Perth is recognized as one of the premier experts on the rare earths sector outside of China. He publishes a periodic review of the industry, which is first released to a subscription group of companies and individuals. The current review is entitled - The Rare Earths Industry Marking Time. After receiving the Professor - The Rare Earths Industry - Marking Time - was to be summarized by Investor-Intel, Tracy Weslosky the Publisher of InvestorIntel asked me to read the latest issue of the Kingsnorth review and to describe its salient points and conclusions for InvestorIntel readership. Because I knew that the Professor was a featured speaker at the recent Critical Materials Conference organized by the Colorado School of Mines and the local - to the Colorado School of Mines - SME chapter, I looked at the program carefully and noted the exceptionally interesting presentation by Alkane Resources. I am going to try and review both the Kingsnorth report and the Alkane presentation together, because Kingsnorth Illustrates how the problem of critical materials is being approached academically and the other - Alkane - illustrates a very good practical solution to what I call the geographic and geopolitical issues in the selection of critical metals. The Kingsnorth review is, in my opinion, not designed for the small investor with a short term outlook. It discusses briefly, but succinctly, the recent 21st century history of rare earth production and current end uses, i.e., current sources of supply and demand, and extrapolates these metrics to the near term of 2017-20. Professor Kingsnorth does describe the supply situation. Professor Kingsnorth does describe the supply situation in the non-Chinese world as eminently able to satisfy any near term non-Chinese demand for the light rare earths but he only mentions two rare earth juniors.