Global scramble for critical minerals fuelling protectionism
Protectionism is rising across 72 nations as governments vie for critical minerals, Verisk Maplecroft research shows.
U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman’s rare earth legislation may have lit a fire under Molycorp’s stock price, which rose 10.3% on Thursday trading.
Coffman, Republican congressman from Colarado, introduced legislation on Wednesday calling for a variety of measures that would better ensure that the United States has secure access to rare earth metals.
Molycorp stock finished Thursday at $68.45. The stock’s 52-week range is $12.10 to $68.79.
Avalon Rare Metals, a Canadian-based exploration company also focused on rare earth metals and minerals, was up. Avalon rose 9.47% to $9.13 a share on Wednesday trading.
Some of the provisions within Coffman’s proposed legislation are the following:
• Directing appropriate federal agencies to expedite the permitting process in order to increase the exploration and development of domestic rare earth elements, without waiving environmental laws, and establishing a multi-agency Task Force to carry out this process;
• Setting up a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) rare earth inventory — where DLA enters into long-term supply contracts and then makes the supplies available for purchase to federal government contractors — to generate a domestic market and facilitate the domestic sourcing of rare earth alloys and magnets;
• Making loans, backed by the federal government, available to start production should lending from the capital markets not be available;
• Requiring the various cabinet Secretaries to appoint Executive Agents for rare earths;
• Establishing a rare earth program at the U.S. Geological Survey.
Molycorp is a Colarado-based rare earth miner that runs the Mountain Pass, an open pit rare earth element mine in California. The mine is being expanded and modernized. Work is supposed to finish this year. By 2013, the company expects the mine to produce 40,000 metric tonnes of rare earth oxide, a doubling of the mine’s production capacity.
China, which produces 97% of the world’s supply of rare earth metals, is placing restrictions of the rare earth metal exports.
Michael Allan McCrae wrote this story. You can contact him at [email protected] or @michaelmccrae. Image of Mountain Pass is from Wikipedia Commons.
