Edging China out of Rare Earth Dominance

According to John Moody from FoxNews, Republican member of the US House of Representatives, Duncan Hunter, plans to introduce legislation this month to require the US military to obtain rare earth elements (“REEs“) that are produced in the US, even if it means subsidizing those industries. More specifically, he said: â€œThis is of critical importance to our national security and ability to stay ahead of everyone else. Rare earth metals are crucial. We’ve closed down mines in my own state of California, which is the leading edge of stupid. We need to have our own rare earths. The big sticking part of the bill is this. You have to put money in to subsidize our own product to create a market, because now there’s no market. We’ve got to put American manufacturing back in competition.”

However, as Moody asserts correctly: â€œThe problem is that US production capacity in this area has been allowed to wither to almost nothing, due to plentiful supplies from China that can be produced at a lower price than US made rare earths.“

Commerce Resources Corp.’s Ashram Rare Earth Project in Québec is firmly in the mainstream of the majority of REE producing mines in the world in that it is a carbonatite hosted project with monazite and bastnaesite as the dominant REE bearing minerals. The importance of this must be stressed in that Commerce is not looking for, nor does it need to find, a new processing technique to concentrate the REEs contained in its Ashram Deposit.