Peak can Block 80 Per Cent of Cerium - and Transform Project Economics

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

Date posted: 04/23/15

Robin Bromby reports that in these days of subdued rare earth prices, scant investor interest in the sector, and the need to do something to attract market attention, strategy is a key requirement. Peak Resources has already signaled it is prioritizing toward concentrating on the REE that are used in magnets. Today the company has refined that strategy. Magnet metals are in the planned mix, cerium not so much. The company has found a way to reduce the amount of cerium being produced in its treatment plant, a technology that will be watched with interest by the rest of the rare earth industry (including, one assumes, by the Chinese companies). The magnet metals particularly praseodymium and neodymium are (by value) of increasing importance to the global rare earth market. That much we know, but Peak today puts some interesting statistics in front of us - the magnet metals have risen sharply in value terms from 47 per cent of the world rare earth market in 2011 to 54 per cent in 2012, 68 per cent in 2013 and in 2014 constituting 74 per cent.