TCMR: What themes do you expect will dominate the REE space in 2012?
JH: There's an interesting beginning of the year shaping up. Chinese quotas will be announced in the early part of 2012. We don't expect dramatic changes in the supply. If anything, the quotas will likely be ratcheted down, but the driving argument there will be that we have not used all of the 2011 quotas. In fact, there still remains substantial export quota for use in 2011. We might even see the export quotas on lanthanum and cerium rise to some extent to try to bring those prices back into a more reasonable range and encourage their use.
The rare earth industry will build up outside of China in 2012. I expect the re-establishment of mining operations in South Africa at Steenkampskraal and the startup of operations at Molycorp. Hopefully, there will be the eminent approval of the Malaysian facility for Lynas Corp. Ltd (LYC:ASX) early in 2012. I think it's going to be a very interesting year.
TCMR: Fascinating. Thanks, Jon.
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