Ramp up production
The world ’ s two largest reserves of rare earth materials outside of China are in Mountain Pass and Mount Weld , Australia . The 2,200- acre Molycorp mine would be the only rare earth mine in the country and could make the United States a global leader in production after the company modernizes its production processes and mill . Some estimates say the Mountain Pass mine contains 20 million tons of ore averaging 9.4 percent grade using a 5 percent cut-off of rare earth mineral ore .
Molycorp – previously owned by Chevron Mining until it was sold to a group of private investors in 2008 – the mine operated with several different owners at Mountain Pass for nearly 50 years until 2002 when it ceased operations , mainly because of permitting constraints . Another contributing factor was the Chinese production of rare earths ; they were able to produce a higher-purity metal and a lower sale price , essentially removing rare earth metal and magnetic manufacturing from the United States . With the energy and technical constraints of the Mountain Pass operation at the time , Molycorp found it difficult to compete .
In recent years , the uses for rare earths has significantly increased in a wide range of technologies worldwide , the Chinese government has cut back export quotas , citing the need
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. . . we are looking at newer technologies to help us improve our ore recovery , extract high purity metals and to get a high level of process automation to drive costs down
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