Carbonatites: The Cornerstones of the Rare Earth Space

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / August 3, 2016 / Today, Stephan Bogner from Rockstone Research published an update on Commerce Resources Corp. (TSX.V: CCE).

When the company attended the Argus Metal Pages REE Conference a month ago in Denver, Colorado, they were the only REE junior present that was active on their project. Yes, there were other REE juniors in attendance, but these were companies working on new technologies, as alternatives to the industry standard of solvent extraction (SX). And no, Commerce Resources is not looking for success from any new technologies as standard processing works very efficiently for Ashram.

No doubt, the REE market has changed dramatically in the last 5 years, and the main takeaway from this conference is something that would probably surprise most market pundits. It’s that everyone can see the exponential drop in prices over the last 5 years, but very few realize that actual REE demand and usage have increased over the same time period.

These seemingly contradictory trends, with lower prices not being a reflection of lowered demand, is something highly unusual, and the simple answer for this behaviour is that prices went too high in the aftermath of the panic in the streets following the Senkaku boat incident and the Chinese cutting off supplies to Japan.

Additionally, the fallout from 2011 means that there has been at least one general design change in the permanent magnets and their REE recipe, coming from the work of Siemens. This change of recipe has reduced the percentage amount of dysprosium being used – a negative to any REE junior whose economics are mostly tied into the value of dysprosium – and then the concomitant percentage increase in either neodymium or praseodymium. This means that the REE market has actually morphed into being even more in line with the distribution of the Ashram Deposit than it was previously – a deposit which has a leading global enrichment in those magnet feed REOs.

The full report can be accessed with the following links:

English (PDF):

http://rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/Commerce19en.pdf

English (web version):

http://rockstone-research.com/index.php/en/research-reports/1391-Carbonatites:-The-Cornerstones-of-the-Rare-Earth-Space

German (PDF):

http://rockstone-research.com/images/PDF/Commerce19de.pdf

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Disclaimer: Please read
the full disclaimer within the full research report as a PDF as fundamental
risks and conflicts of interest exist.

SOURCE: Rockstone Research

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