The BBC has dubbed Rhenium — another metal included in the Department of the Interior’s Final List of 35 Minerals Deemed Critical to U.S. National Security and the Economy — a “super element” with standout properties that can be likened to “alien technology.”

Thus, it comes as no surprise that Shane Lasley, writing for North of 60 Mining News, has included Rhenium in his feature series “Critical Minerals Alaska.” 

Citing Rhenium’s high resistance to both heat and wear, which makes it a “vital element in superalloys,” Lasley says it’s these properties coupled with extreme scarcity that “helps boost it onto the list of 35.

After outlining the demand scenario for Rhenium based on USGS figures, Lasley zeroes in on the supply side.  Porphyry Copper-Molybdenum deposits, from which most Rhenium is derived, tend to be low in concentration, but the “large tonnage mined from this type of deposit makes it possible to recover economically viable quantities of the critical mineral.”

According to Lasley, the Pebble deposit in Alaska holds large amounts of Rhenium and could not only supply significant quantities of Rhenium, but also be “indicative of Alaska’s larger potential for this super alloy metal.”  He writes:

“Calculations completed in 2011 estimates the measured and indicated resource contains roughly 0.45 g/t rhenium, which equates to around 2.9 million kilograms, or roughly US$6.4 billion, of the critical superalloy metal.

This is enough rhenium to supply the world’s needs for more than four decades at 2017 consumption levels and does not account for the rhenium contained in the 4.45 billion metric tons of inferred resource outlined at Pebble.”

This, according to USGS, “suggests that there is the potential for significant rhenium resources in undiscovered porphyry copper deposits in Alaska” – good news, given that the U.S. currently imports 80% of the rhenium it requires each year.

As followers of ARPN know, turning that potential into actual production — in the case of rhenium and its fellow “criticals” — will take a policy framework that rewards the risks inherent in resource development.