New hurdle for WA project

摘要

The Chinese Government's recent tightening of export quotas for rare earth oxides (REO) has caused Lynas Corporation Ltd to investigate going outside of China for the processing of its Mt Weld materials, which are scheduled to be produced from mid-2008 onwards. In addition, production quotas imposed in April are causing a further constriction of what is already inadequate supply amid skyrocketing demand. Lynas executive chairman Nick Curtis said the global rare earths market was currently producing about 100,000 tonnes per annum, with 97 percent of this coming from China. Under the new production quotas, the east Asian super power will produce about 85,000 tpa of REO in concentrate. In the south, heavy rare earths including samarium and europium are common and total resources are about 200,000t. Here, production last year was 22,000t of heavies, but the quota is now only 8,000t. "Hybrid vehicles, which are becoming increasingly popular, do not work without rare earths and if two million hybrid vehicles are produced by 2010, that's 30,000t per annum of new rare earths demand," Curtis said.