If you are wonky and interested
Gareth Hatch has a breakdown of the rare earth export allowances by exporting company for the first half of 2011. It's an interesting analysis, particularly when Gareth shows how the quotas are determined. Alarmist press reports would make one believe these numbers are arbitrary. However, Gareth shows how capacity and history are used to calculate each company's share of the export total.
In other rare earth moves, I tweeted last week about Dacha purchasing 12 metric tonnes of DyFe that they plan to stockpile in Korea. Of course, dysprosium is among the rare-er rare earth metals. often with market prices that increase faster than other elements. Randy watches the Dy prices daily, so it will be something to see what happens to the value of their investment.
And as I blogged before, I'm ultra-curious about where the Hitachi-Molycorp JV magnet factory will be located. In lieu of an announcement, I'll just note that Molycorp's Director of Magnet Manufacturing tweeted on Sunday that he is now an official resident of Colorado. That shouldn't be a surprise since that is where their main office is located. Combine that with where the main US mine is (California), as well as at least one likely supplier of alloying servicesl (Arizona), it looks increasingly less possible that some of the old industrial stomping grounds like Indiana or Michigan will be site candidates. I should point out that Hitachi does manufacture ferrite magnets in North Carolina (and if you follow that link and look at where in NC their factory is, prepare for a Doobie Brothers ear worm). The technology is very different for producing ferrite motor arcs from NdFeB magnets, so there are not too many compelling reasons for these two different products to share a facility.
In other rare earth moves, I tweeted last week about Dacha purchasing 12 metric tonnes of DyFe that they plan to stockpile in Korea. Of course, dysprosium is among the rare-er rare earth metals. often with market prices that increase faster than other elements. Randy watches the Dy prices daily, so it will be something to see what happens to the value of their investment.
And as I blogged before, I'm ultra-curious about where the Hitachi-Molycorp JV magnet factory will be located. In lieu of an announcement, I'll just note that Molycorp's Director of Magnet Manufacturing tweeted on Sunday that he is now an official resident of Colorado. That shouldn't be a surprise since that is where their main office is located. Combine that with where the main US mine is (California), as well as at least one likely supplier of alloying servicesl (Arizona), it looks increasingly less possible that some of the old industrial stomping grounds like Indiana or Michigan will be site candidates. I should point out that Hitachi does manufacture ferrite magnets in North Carolina (and if you follow that link and look at where in NC their factory is, prepare for a Doobie Brothers ear worm). The technology is very different for producing ferrite motor arcs from NdFeB magnets, so there are not too many compelling reasons for these two different products to share a facility.
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