From Reuters via Mining.com:
Vietnam’s mined output of rare earths soared tenfold last year, US data showed, as global firms have flocked to the Southeast Asian country with the world’s second largest estimated deposits to reduce reliance on China for the key industrial metals.
Past attempts to build up Vietnam’s rare earth industry have stuttered due to falling prices and regulatory hurdles, but growing sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and firms’ efforts to diversify their suppliers has revived interest in Vietnam.
Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASM) said on Monday that it would buy 100 tonnes of rare earth oxides this year from Vietnam Rare Earth Co and is looking for a longer term supply agreement.
ASM said a longer-term agreement with the Vietnamese firm would provide it with a multi-source feedstock option and additional supply security for its processing plant in South Korea.
Rare earths are a group of elements that have applications in electronics manufacturing and batteries, making them important for the global transition towards cleaner sources of energy and in defence.
Vietnam’s rare earth mine production jumped to 4,300 tonnes last year from 400 tonnes in 2021, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a government agency....
....MUCH MORE
And as noted in "Rare Earths: Reminder, Combined Brazilian and Vietnamese Resource Base Approximately Equals China's Proven and Probable Reserves":
Mining the stuff is relatively straightforward. The huge difference is that Brazil and Vietnam do not have the refining and fabricating infrastructure that China does.
We have some experience with this stuff, both long and short, out in public on the blog for all the world to see. Here's a quote, first used in late 2010 as the last mania was just getting started, from a very good book on investing, that was our lodestone (mining/magnet term) through the last mania.
And a 2015 post looking back to those halcyon days:
Rare earth metals: Objects of power and risk
Just the words, "Rare Earth" brings back memories: “My old MG TC. A blond girl, tan from the summer sun, in the Hamptons, beer on the beach, ‘Unchained Melody,’ the little bar in the Village.”
Uh, wait. That was Adam Smith in our 2012 post "Adam Smith on Oil Shale (Now with Voodoo Beach Bunnies)". Ahem. Never mind.
Our memories are more like trading Molycorp for three triples, short and long, on the blog, in public, from IPO to bankruptcy or if you will "From tombstone to tombstone".
Or commenting on the passing parade: Luxembourg-based Rare Earth Company Hoping to Mine in South Africa by 2014 Does Oversubscribed IPO in Toronto (FRO.tsx), or quoting one of the, if not the, best books on investing and life:
