"Laggards of innovation in this space... risk being clipped by a new entrant into the market." - Paul Martyn, vice president of supply strategy at BravoSolution.
Breaking Free from China
"Dependency on one country or source for rare earths is dangerous," he said. "Right now the situation is fairly dire in the industry because we are being held captive by the Chinese for these materials."
The solution, he said, is to minimize China's role by leveraging our primary assets and investing in local sourcing.
"The gamesmanship China is playing and the critical nature of the supply to energy, to defense and to electronics has really created an environment now where, on a cost of investment or return on investment perspective, we are seeing a lot of equity companies that have really doubled down on mining exercises," he said.
Today, he explained, there are basically five or six mines in the world that are producing the total supply of rare earths, but as many as 30 new sources have been identified globally. At least a dozen of those sources are right here in North America.
"It's vital right now that manufacturers of high tech components be close to the supply of rare earths and have a reliable source of that supply. That's just basic economics," he said.
