I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the metals chart from AMY's website which i'm glad, Michael, that you've put in the I-box here for our AMY.v board... namely, the big graphic on "supply risk" and "impact on supply restriction" for various critical metals, including manganese, the PGMs (especially rhodium), and the REEs-- all symbolized by various colored geometric shapes. (I don't know how to reproduce that chart here in this post.)
Study carefully that chart and notice the high-level SUPPLY RISK and also the IMPACT OF SUPPLY RESTRICTION for Manganese, compared to, say, lithium, vanadium, titanium, copper. Manganese is slightly higher on restriction-impact than niobium and indium. In fact, the only element more important on this “impact” issue is rhodium (symbolized by the white circle, part of the Platinum Group Metals or PGM). Looking at the two dimensions of this particular chart, manganese is right up there in importance along with platinum and rare earths just below rhodium.
But I think this chart needs to be revised. Recall the recent NR from AMY, reproducing a news item from Metal-Pages.com on how Chinese sources in early May 2011 are saying that China’s EMM (electrolytic manganese metal) yearly production would be cut by “500k – 700k tonnes over next 3-5 years,” which is 38%-54% of their current production.
Thus, this graphic chart on the supply risk/impact of the different critical metals should really show the highest level of supply risk for manganese as well, effectively putting it right up there with rhodium as the MOST CRITICAL metal in terms of both “supply risk” and “impact of supply restriction.”
And AMY looks to be rapidly developing by far the lowest-cost / most profitable / least complicated / most eco-friendly production process for this “mega-critical” commodity.
And senior AMY geologist Norm is talking about AMY having "the best, most profitable potential (mining) site" he's seen in his 50 years in the biz, and hopefully AMY expanding their mining throughput from 3,500 tonnes/day to "10k to 20k to 30k tonnes/day."
Add the fact that we're talking about a mining-friendly and weather-friendly state (Arizona) in a country-safe jurisdiction (no danger of USA nationalizing the mine unlike threats in Peru, Boliva, Venezuela)...
And now you know why some of us are so stoked on AMY as likely the finest junior-mining development-story on the planet.
So let's see how mgmt continues to unfold their game-plan.
Looking forward to seeing those first assays from their newest drilling program....
