The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[Tuff-Stuff]

The challenge "China accounts for 97 per cent of world production"

MCP goal>The target is to produce about 19,000 tonnes of rare-earth products per year: about one-sixth of global production and more than the entire US demand.

“One of the issues here is the inability of the industry to insure itself against policy risk”

Molycorp argues that it has those issue covered. It says its new separation process, which it is using with ore mined before 2002, will both avoid environmental issues and allow it to produce at half the cost of the Chinese competitors.

Comment: It's hard to rationalize China will quietly yield to this substantial loss of power.