People and places

Abstract

The need for rare earths has been growing for 60-70 years. These little elements are in all of our electronic products. I wondered for a while if we would come to see good conditions in the market that would support any rare earths project. A few years back and I may not have been interested in TRER's Round Top project, with its unusual Round Top's benchwork testing suggests that leaching will be easy, which is important to project economics. The tests indicate rare earth recoveries in the 90% region. It also has a 3:1 heavy to light rare earth ratio, which is a sound base for a rare earths project. The local infrastructure network is very good - Round Top will have access to all the chemicals, power and water that it needs. Finally, I envisage a heavy rare earth supply gap emerging in the next five years. Shi Dongshen is to join H J Baker & Bro at the company's Shanghai, China offices. Dongshen joins following the recent opening of H J Baker's Lianyungang sulphur-bentonite plant.