rare earth elements like scandium

Exploitation at great expense

Europium, neodymium, scandium and cerium them in chemical periodic table of elements are called. Together with twelve other metals they belong to the group of "rare earths". These metals are really rare, with few exceptions not. They are scarce, mainly due to the throttled exports from China.

The minerals were discovered late 18th Century in Sweden. They came in and were rare minerals as oxides (oxygen compound, formerly called "Earth") was isolated. Hence the term "rare earths". The raw materials themselves are not rare, a few occur frequently even.

While the short-lived, radioactive element promethium in the earth's really rare, neodymium and cerium are more common. More difficult, however, is the promotion, which is associated with a high cost, because the metals are not found in large quantities.

Adverse edge products
In some cases, they are also by-products of other minerals. The company is planning about Green Country Minerals & Energy in Greenland, "rare earth" at an annual 20,000 tons per year as by-product of uranium.

Some of the metals are toxic even in part. The problem with the promotion is also incurring adverse edge products. For example, the rare earth metals are washed with acids from boreholes. What remains of toxic sludge.

The first ETF on rare earth like scandium will start

Rare earth are in high-tech companies in hot demand. Mobile phones, flat screen televisions and hybrid cars. Nothing works without yttrium, lanthanum or ytterbium. Now there is the first ETF from UBS on the Stoxx-Rare-Earth-Index
The boom in the products on REE has already provided some time ago at the party certificates for gold rush. But since then the prices are in free fall, they have disappeared from the radar screen of most investors. Now try the Swiss UBS ETF investors again with the first warming to the subject. In contrast to some limited term certificate refers to the ETF launched in July on the Rare Earth Stoxx index. It consists of 14 titles that achieve at least 30 percent of its sales from the mining and processing of rare earth minerals - 17 of them there. It is scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, lutetium, ytterbium, thulium, erbium, holmium, dysprosium, terbium, gadolinium,
Europium, samarium, promethium, neodymium, praseodymium, and cerium.

Another selection criterion for the Index is liquidity. Only stocks whose trading volume of at least one million dollars per day is - over a period
three months - come into question. In addition, the weight of a single value to a maximum of 20 percent is limited, and is rebalanced every three months the index. The 20-percent mark for the U.S. companies are currently achieving Lynas Corporation and the Australian value of Molycorp. Through the few titles available for selection, the concentration is very high. The five largest stocks make clear already from more than 65 percent. The regional variation is quite small. Canadian companies account for nearly 42 percent, more than 33 percent of Australian, U.S. and Chinese five values ​​20 percent.

rare earth scandium as the world jockeying for resources

China consumes more copper and other basic goods. In other industrialized countries grow the raw material appetite. This leads to considerable price rises.
A fiery red raw everyone is talking about: some nine years ago was the price of copper at around $ 1500. In October 2011, the metal is then noted already at almost $ 8,000. This corresponds to a jump in price inflation by more than fivefold.
The reason for this rapid growth is quickly identified: The world demands for copper - especially in China. In 1997, the Middle Kingdom spent barely more than five percent of global production. 2008 but the percentage was, according to a study by the Fraunhofer Institute at 29 percent.
Also the world's appetite for copper rose. In 2003, consumption was reported to the International Copper Study Group at 15.72 million tons, in 2010 there were already nine million tonnes. The lion's share of the additional demand was on the account of the People's Republic. Crucial to the copper hype is that the metal is very conductive and therefore for the construction of infrastructure almost indispensable.

This will be about scandium

Still collecting info for this.