Earth Equity News

California Open-Pit Rare Earth Metals Mine to Reopen. By Steve Gorman, Reuters, August 31, 2009. "The open-pit mine at Mountain Pass, California, holds the world's richest proven reserve of 'rare earth' metals, a family of minerals vital to producing the powerful, lightweight magnets used in the engines of... hybrid vehicles as well as generators in wind turbines. Seeking to replace China as the leading supplier of these scarce materials, Colorado-based Molycorp Minerals LLC plans to reopen its long-idled quarry to resume extracting and refining thousands of tons of rare earth ore in the next few years... Backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from equity investors, including Goldman Sachs, Molycorp aims to avert a looming rare-earths supply crunch that threatens to muffle the green-technology boom... At the peak of its operations two decades ago, the mine produced 20,000 tonnes of rare earth oxides a year, accounting for the entire U.S. supply and about a third of the world's total. Most of the rest came from China... But as Chinese production and exports grew through the 1990s, rare earth prices worldwide plunged, undercutting business for Molycorp, then owned by oil company Unocal."