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According to media reports surfacing this week, China is looking to cut essentially cut mining rights for REE producers in half – to 67 points down from 113.

Analysts tie the move into China’s overall effort to “strengthen its pricing power in the international rare earth market.” This wouldn’t be the first time China, which still controls roughly 95% of global Rare Earths production, resorts to market-manipulation schemes. In recent history, suppliers have seen prices affected by embargos, export quotas and other restrictions. Whatever China’s motives, however, these news underscore the necessity for U.S. lawmakers to realize that China remains a force to be reckoned with in the resource world, and has to be factored in when formulating a critical mineral strategy.

According to a news story in the Gazette-Virginian, a new local group called People for Economic Prosperity has embarked on a campaign in support of developing a promising uranium deposit at Coles Hill in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, roughly 30 miles north of the North Carolina border.

Experts consider the deposit the “the nation’s richest untapped source of uranium oxide.” In order to harness the deposit’s potential, Virginia’s 1982 moratorium on mining uranium would have to be lifted, and the local debate has sparked a national controversy over the merits of uranium mining.

As industry figures place the United States’ reliance on foreign imports of uranium to meet domestic needs at a whopping 95 percent, and in light of uranium’s relevance as reactor fuel, it is a debate worth having.

While environmentalists are quick to dismiss any uranium mining proposals as risky and harmful to the environment, People for Economic Prosperity points to impressive Canadian mining successes using the highest safety standards and stringent regulations, and argues that the Coles Hill deposit “can and will be mined safely and that Pittsylvania County will benefit immensely from the direct and indirect economic benefits including jobs and capital investment.”

To learn more about the group, visit www.PEPsouthside.org (after the end of the month, as the group’s website is currently under construction).

As they are a hot commodity right now, talking about Rare Earths Elements is en vogue these days. As fascinating as they are, the terminology associated with this group of minerals composed of the fifteen lanthanoid elements plus Scandium and Yttrium remains confusing to many. To clarify things, American Resources expert and Technology Metals Research (…) more

This is the second of a two-part post by American Resources Expert Simon Moores and his Industrial Minerals colleague, Andy Miller. Read Part One here.   2013 rebound after poor year 2012 has been a poor year for graphite demand. Trading activity has been sapped out of the industry since September with little sign of (…) more

This is the first of a two-part post by American Resources Expert Simon Moores and his Industrial Minerals colleague, Andy Miller. Check back tomorrow for Part Two. The future for electric vehicle (EV) batteries dominated discussion at Industrial Minerals 2nd Graphite Conference in London last week, despite being only the fourth largest market for the (…) more

A piece on the investment blog SeekingAlpha addresses the flawed perception that “the U.S. exhausted the bulk of its mineral deposits during its rapid phase of industrial growth and is now buying what it needs from countries like China out of sheer necessity,” and laments the fact that the United States’ mineral resource dependency was (…) more

While the U.S. government still does not speak with one voice on strategic and critical minerals and a formulation of a coherent national mineral strategy still has a long way to go, input regarding what minerals need particular attention comes from various sources. One of them is the mining industry itself, with American Elements releasing (…) more

A widely used specialty metal with properties especially critical for a range of defense applications, Beryllium ranks high on various international lists of strategic and critical minerals, including our very own Risk Pyramid. The fact that very few companies around the world develop the mineral makes it even more relevant from a strategic perspective. In (…) more

  American Resources Principal Dan McGroarty appeared on the Glen Biegel Show on Tuesday to discuss domestic mineral development and what the United States can do to take advantage of its critical metals, particularly in the resource-rich state of Alaska. Listen below. more

In an opinion piece for U.S. News and World Report, Eric Hannis, senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, makes the case for U.S. Rare Earths independence from China. With China having flooded the market with cheap Rare Earths in the 1990s, thus pushing U.S. and other foreign competitors out of (…) more