The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
MONTREAL — A Canadian mining company vying to become one of the world’s major producers of heavy rare-earth minerals says it’s moving ahead with development of its Northern Quebec deposit after positive results from a prefeasibility study.
Quest Rare Minerals ltd. estimates total construction capital costs for development of its Strange Lake deposit at $2.57-billion, based on a minimum mine life of 30 years. It will be one of the world’s largest and highest-grade heavy rare-earth mining projects and a planned processing facility in Southern Quebec will be North America’s largest such operation, the company said on Wednesday.
Quest is in competition with other companies to be the first to get production up and running in order to take advantage of supply constraints resulting from Chinese restrictions on export of the minerals. The country is the world’s top producer of rare-earth minerals and wants to guarantee supplies amid huge internal market demand.
Rare-earth metals are used in a wide range of products, including flat-screen televisions, smartphones, guided missiles and batteries for laptop computers and cellphones.
Heavy rare-earth metals are the rarest and fetch higher prices than the so-called “lights.”
Matamec Explorations Inc. is among Canadian companies Quest is up against in the race to become the next big rare-earth-mineral producers.
Matamec has an exclusive agreement with a subsidiary of Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. to fast-track development of its Kipawa mine deposit in the Témiscamingue region of Quebec.
Toyota wants to secure a steady supply of metals needed for its hybrid and electric vehicles and reduce its reliance on China.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/quest-to-move-ahead-with-quebec-rare-earth-project-after-positive-results/article15014659/#dashboard/alerts