RARE EARTH OPPORTUNITIES!

    It seems as if China is about to invoke a ban on  Rare Earth mineral and metal exports,to the USA and its allies !
  This is in reply to the USA increasing tariffs on Chinese exports into America. At the moment  they have a massive trade surplus with America. The USA is trying to balance the "Playing field"as      China uses many underhand methods to prevent fair trade.
China produces at least 85%  of these rare earths and up to now has sold them at prices low enough to discourage any other country from developing their own sources.
 These minerals include cobalt,spodium(lithium) and many others that most people have never heard of!
1.This is now an opportunity for other countries to to jump in and produce their share of this developing bonanza as prices are starting to rapidly increase!
 2. A decade or so ago ,China was  in a spat with Japan which has no minerals of any kind. Japan simply in electronics and cell phones etc. started substitution successfully and thus suffered very little discomfort. They are prepared to share this knowledge with the world.
 3.Most of the minerals/metals are really not so rare but difficult to mine ,also the price being low and limited use has prevented much in development.
 4. The USA has one small mine/factory ,but private enterprise is already planning massive expansion. This is likely to take another three years and many companies will sign long term contracts as one cannot then rely on supplies that can be interrupted at a moments notice.
There is a move afoot for more  enterprises in this direction being planned which might take up to five years to be completely up and running.
  5 Australia and Namibia have vast amounts of Spodium . And South Africa can extract cobalt easily from mines. All that is required to mine other minerals is the will and sound government without corruption to mine the various resources.

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Lack of Patience in World Clean Air Events !

1. The drive to lithium is now well under underway. The British government is about to spend millions on lithium service points,as well I suspect probably the rest of the first world as well, as private enterprise could really not keep up. So far all lithium battery  auto companies are running at a loss.
 A few points to consider :- 
a. Lithium is a rare earth metal so not in unlimited supply (spodium).
b. Governments are at last admitting that solar power is not likely to be able or best at loading points to power battery chargers. Coal powered  electricity will still power  most of the loading points for the forsee-able future!
c. At the moment batteries have to be charged for at least half an hour every 500 km!
d.Lithium batteries have not to date had a good safety record!
e.It seems as if lithium might be hazardous to health in numerous ways as well.
2. Well proven methods with fuel cell technology although not receiving the attention of lithium and proven results is soaring ahead in Sweden Volvo,Ballard company and many smaller  companies in America and Toyota in Japan. supplies of Platinum will last for at least the next couple of hundred years.
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TRENDING COMPANIES AND MINERALS.

Ever since 2009 ,except for a couple of short periods ,I have been a PGM (Platinum Group metal) bull!
There is always a couple of them increasing in price. I have always maintained that Platinum is the more important than Palladium. The palladium price has for the last couple of years been higher than platinum,mainly because motor manufacturers lied about the loadings of platinum in catylitic converters . This damaged platinum use and speculators did the rest and chased prices down. Palladium is now in bubble territory,so is now easing against the platinum price.
THE GREAT FUTURE IN PLATINUM is now in FUEL CELL TECHNOLOGY 
Remember fuel cells produce no pollutants in every type of engine from autos to stationary engines. Japan is going full steam ahead with this production ,whilst the rest of the world is concentrating on lithium solutions which  has many drawbacks as the electricity to load these batteries will still mostly be produced by coal fired power stations for at least the next half centuary.
THE LEADING WORLD MINING COMPANIES THAT ABLE TO SUPPLY THESE NEEDS ADEQUATELY HAVE MANY OF THEIR ASSETS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.
                DO WATCH 
ANGLO (AGL)
SYBANYE (SGL)
AMPLATS (AMS)
IMPALA (IMP)
RBPLATS (RBP)
NORTHAM (NHM)
1. 
A good idea is to also read Bvians Southern African mining and resources news on a monthly basis        AS WELL

2.
The latest  page updates are always at the top of the right hand column.

BVN Under-- THE-- Radar: South Africa's Recovery

BVN Under-- THE-- Radar: South Africa's Recovery: There seems a genuine air to make 2019 the year of recovery in our country.  There have been many commissions of enquirery and at last gove...

The New Hydrogen AGE, REVOLUTION !

HYDROGEN which can easily be extracted from water is likely to drive the  new clean air revolution.
This is the preferred fuel that works with Platinum catalityic fuel cells. Its half the price of pretroleum fuels and has the advantage of being 100 % free of pollution.
Of course there's talk of using boron etc .to cut out rare earth ,such as platinum altogether ,but these experiments are still unproven.
When platinum is used for catalysts the power produced is strong enough to drive the largest stationary engines or so little can be used for small engines.
Toyota and other car,bus and heavy duty manufacturers have all chosen platinum to drive their future plans.
Germany is also tooling up now. Their leading manufacturer Mercedes Benz is also getting in on the act.
South Africa is the leading country regarding supply of platinum in the world .Impala platinum mine is now gearing up to supply their own electricity.
There is genuine scope for down-line applications helping create work locally. Do read all the other posts that I have written on platinum group metals over the years. Click on labels below or in the side-bar.
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NEW YEAR PROSPECTS

1.During the previous year the general investment climate in Southern Africa never really lived up to  expectations.
Stocks of course had over shot the true recovery from the 2008 recession. Further, very bad political decisions such as the land grab debate to curry favor  with the  uneducated part of the electorate had bad repercussions for our country as overseas investors sold off our stocks . Moving to the more safe countries of the world.
See the side bar as some stocks held up  and mid-capital stocks did rather well when based on sound principles .
As our government is now looking for overseas funds to prop up their program of aims they have to get a lid on corruption and general government wastage. It unlikely that they will do the absolute take overs as Europe and America put pressure on them to behave in a civilised manner!
One danger is that they are turning to China for more of their monetary needs,how  ever China itself being under threat of  trade wars is cutting back on more reckless lending.
2. Platinum group metals are now coming into their own. There is always at least a couple , out performing. At the moment Rhodium and Palladium are trending. Do look at our Mining website where reasons are discussed from time to time. 
See the top of right hand side-bar,for the latest updates .

The Brexit Fuss !

5/SEPT. 2019
I NEVER THOUGHT THIS ARTICLE WOULD BE SO PROPHETIC! I CAN NOT SEE WHY I SHOULD CHANGE IT IN ANY WAY
Politicians noses out of joint,because voters democratically chose to leave the European Union in a referendum, of course by the simplest vote and majority. If stay in the Union had won as they wanted they would have felt vindicated, as the vast majority of politicians wanted to stay ! 
  Crazy to have put a political stayer in the position to negotiate the withdrawel and civil servants adding to the doom and gloom by extrapolating what happen years later if a compromise is not taken. The civil servants views reminds me of market tipsters how ever well informed trying to predict the future peformance of a stock.More often than not they get it wrong over every period from short to long time periods.
  The stupidest wailing politicians are those wanting a perfect trade deal now without knowing what will be up for trade in the future. Even when within the Union a new trade deal is worked out it takes from months to years to get all the crinkels out.
   The British are not mostly coddled children that  must be protected from all events by self seeking politicians.Of course they are quite eccentric peoples, but tough and hard working and not  only overcome any challenge but will look forward of making a success of any situation.This is the only country in the world as far as I know that does not have a written constitution ,but an
outstanding working democracy.
   GATT(The general agreement of tariffs and trade) which will protect them if they leave with out an agreement is a good starting point to a bright future, they should then not seek to re-enter the European Union as they will then not be able to plot their independent way forward.The EU just loves encroaching on the British assets such as oil in the North Sea and fishing rights.
  Honestly I must add that the E Union has become top heavy and not my view only but many world wide has passed its "Sell by date   !" .MID- European states would do themselves a favour by forming their own union as they become increasingly dominated by the powerful Western European states. 

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