Indium, Gallium and Germanium News from the Web

Dowa raises indium prices by 3,000 yen/kg

admin — Fri, 06 May 2011 12:57:12 +0000

Japan’s biggest supplier of indium, Dowa Electronics Materials Co, raised its prices for the minor metal for the third month in a row, increasing them by 3,000 yen ($37.50) per kilogram.

Its price for indium ingots with 99.99 percent purity is 68,000 yen/kg ($850) for customers who buy in large volumes, and 73,000 yen/kg ($912.50) .

SMG Indium Resources Ltd. Announces $24 million IPO for Indium Stockpile

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:12:46 +0000

SMG Indium Resources Ltd., a company formed to purchase and stockpile the metal indium, today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 4,800,000 units at a price of $5.00 per unit for gross proceeds of $24,000,000. Each unit issued in the initial public offering consists of one common share and one warrant to purchase one common share at an exercise price of $5.75 per common share.

The Company’s units are expected to be quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board on May 5, 2011 under the ticker symbol “SGMEU”. The Company has granted the underwriters a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 720,000 units to cover over-allotments, if any.

The Company expects to fully utilize a minimum of 85% of the net proceeds from this offering to purchase and stockpile the metal indium within 18 months of the date of this prospectus.

Dowa Electronics Materials Co, Japan’s biggest supplier of indium, raises prices $60/kg

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:55:26 +0000

Wholesale Prices: Gallium Crashes Through $800, Antimony $15,000, Germanium $1500, Indium Higher

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:52:03 +0000

New Chinese Pollution Standards Will Force Consolidation

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:45:25 +0000

A newly released official document, which sets tough emission limits on miners producing rare earths, will force a reshuffle in the industry, Chinese experts and industry insiders said.

The rules, released by China’s Ministry of Environment Protection (MEP), will take effect on October 1 this year.

“The rules will drive the small and medium rare earth enterprises out of the industry or to be merged with big players and thus promote the industry consolidation,” said Lin Donglu, secretary general of the Chinese Society of Rare Earths.

The rules, for example, set emission cap for ammonia nitrogen content at 25 mg per liter of water for existing rare earths companies during the two years beginning from January 1, 2012, a sharp drop from the current level, which ranges from 300 to 5,000 mg per liter of water, according to the MEP.

The emission level for ammonia nitrogen content will be further reduced to 15 mg per liter for all companies in the industry starting from January 1, 2014.

Liang Xingfang, deputy general manager of Baotou Rewin Rare Earth Metal Materials Co, Ltd said the new standards were strict, “especially ammonia nitrogen emissions, which places big pressure on firms.”

Liang said, technically, it was relatively more difficult for firms to deal with ammonia nitrogen content in water emissions than in gas and sludge emissions.

“The rare earths enterprises which use backward hydrometallurgy and baking technology will have to invest hugely to upgrade their technology,” Liang said.

The new standards will help the sustainable development of the rare earth industry in terms of mining, mineral separation and smelting, said Tan Wanli, chief engineer of the Heli Rare Earth Smelting Co, Ltd in east China’s Jiangxi province.

To small and medium enterprises in the rare earth industry, the new standards will make them suffer and even die out, given their capital and technological limits, Tan said. However, to big firms it can be an opportunity to accelerate development.

Industry sources report Indium up again $25/kg this week

admin — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:39:50 +0000

Gallium up $20/kg, Germanium up $20/kg, with Chinese suppliers sitting out in support of Central government’s mandate that China receive full value from technology metals exports.

Understanding the Low Prices of the Rare Earths in China Itself

admin — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:22:51 +0000

A great post by Industry expert Jack Lifton

Li Gang, Deputy Gov. of the Peoples Bank of China said on Sat, Feb 26,2011: “In addition to boosting the flexibility of the yuan exchange rate, China also should adjust resource prices to address imbalances,” he said, “as many resources are still traded in China at below their natural prices[ Emphasis added by me]. China also should boost wages and social benefits to lift consumption, step up its enforcement of environment regulations and undertake other structural reforms to address imbalances.”

Repeat after me: The selling prices of the rare earths and other commodities within China are still too low. Thus, if the Chinese Government did not strictly control their export then the market would drive all of the supply out of China chasing the higher prices in the foreign marketplace. One current driver for such a foreign accumulation would be the stocking of strategic materials (stockpiling) by governments to protect their domestic industry’s security of supply. Another driver could well be inventory building by once burned twice shy private corporations finally reversing the 50 year reign of the just-in-time no inventory philosophy , which was a principal driver in the creation of this problem..

Chinese central planning economists however also see this danger to Chinese industrial security of supply and by extension as potentially then leading to high unemployment in the very important domestic Chinese alternate energy, green and clean-tech sectors, The Chinese central bank, the Peoples’ Bank of China (PBOC) does not want to buy commodities as an alternative to US Treasury Bonds, because this could disrupt the commodities market causing price volatility in the very asset tried to be used to stabilize prices and the currency. And even more importantly no commodity accumulation of sufficient size to soak up excess Chinese liquidity would be likely to make a dent in reserves as large as those of China in any case, but it would certainly interrupt the flow of raw materials for industry.

The PBOC is determined to force China to grow its consumer sector without causing inflation, one of the two of its, the PBOC’s greatest fears. The other being a massively corrected and thus much more expensive Yuan. Yet by continuing to buy up surplus and hot money inflow dollars at a fixed rate it feeds, and it knows it is feeding, inflation and increasing the pressure on it to revalue the Yuan or let it float.

The prices of the rare earths in China will have to increase soon or smuggling will become uncontrollable. That is human nature. In the long run the production of the rare earth metals outside of China will help the Chinese by increasing the global supply and reducing global prices and thus eliminating the need for export controls. This is doubly true when one considers that China itself is the world’s biggest market for rare earth metals, and its neighbor, Japan, accounts for almost all of the rest of the global demand.

The rare earth mining economy within China is tiny as a proportion of the GDP, but the number of jobs dependent critically on the properties of the rare earth metals required to manufacture green and clean-tech as well as communication and entertainment technologies is not trivial. China’s central planners’ dilemma is that it must keep rare earths cheap in order not to drive rare earth based component jobs off-shore to lower cost countries such as Viet Nam or India. Its own entrepreneurs are already doing this, by the way.

The result for junior miners with rare earth claims is that the race is on to produce more of what China needs to be produced outside of China to relieve the pressure on its two tier pricing economy for commodities such as the rare earths.

The Chinese government maintains strict overall control of China’s economy from Beijing. Chinese businessmen, however, have the same mindset as any other businessmen, maximize profit and reduce costs. In today’s China the government wins and it may use a meat ax rather than a scalpel to enforce its decisions such as with the rare earths recently.

But to think that Chinese economists and central bankers do not see the problem is foolish.

I believe that the selling prices outside of China of the rare earths will continue to rise until there is significant non-Chinese production of the rare earths. Then if demand exceeds supply, which I think likely, there will be a massive culling of those companies not in production, or of those that are too large, or too skewed to light rare earths. The prices of the heavy rare earths, so long as China continues to maintain that its supplies are being exhausted, must continue to climb. One respected analyst is calling for a dysprosium price of nearly $2000/kg by 2020. If China does not find domestic new supplies of dysprosium I think the analyst is on the right track.

Be cautious when investing in the rare earth sector. Very large forces are intersecting in it and will make it very volatile in the near term.

Upward in lockstep, Indium, Gallium, Germanium climb again this week

admin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 18:37:33 +0000

Ending the week Indium finishes up $35/kg for the week, Gallium $30/kg and Germanium $50/kg.

Samsung Quantum Dot Display uses Indium transistors

admin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:33:23 +0000

Researchers at Samsung Electronics have made the first full-color display that uses quantum dots. Quantum-dot displays promise to be brighter, cheaper, and more energy-efficient than those found in today’s cell phones and MP3 players.

Quantum dots are semiconductor nanocrystals that glow when exposed to current or light. They emit different colors depending on their size and the material they’re made from. Their bright, pure colors and low power consumption make them very appealing for displays.

Samsung’s four-inch diagonal display is controlled using an active matrix, which means each of its color quantum-dot pixels is turned on and off with a thin-film transistor.

Quantum-dot displays would consume less than a fifth of the power of LCDs, says Samsung researcher Tae-Ho Kim. They promise to be brighter and longer-lasting than OLEDs. What’s more, they could be manufactured for less than half of what it costs to make LCD or OLED screens.

This potential has caught the attention of big display manufacturers other than Samsung. LG Display is partnering with MIT spinoff QD Vision to develop quantum-dot displays.

The transistors controlling the display are made of amorphous hafnium-indium-zinc oxide, which provide higher, more stable current than conventional amorphous-silicon transistors. The resulting display has subpixels that are about 50 micrometers wide and 100 micrometers long, small enough for use in cell-phone screens.

Indium Gallium alloy extends life of Lithium batteries

admin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:28:12 +0000

Scientists at the University of Illinois looked at the chemistry of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries — found in cellphones, laptop computers, digital cameras and other portable electronics — and found that like all batteries they tend to break down over time.

“There are many different types of degradation that happen, and fixing this degradation could help us make longer-lasting batteries,” Scott White, a UI materials engineer, said.

One site of damage is the battery’s negatively charged terminal, the anode, which swells and shrinks as the battery is charged and then discharges over time, eventually creating cracks that can interfere with the flow of current and, ultimately, kill the battery.

White embedded tiny microspheres in the anode that would tear open as the anode began cracking, releasing a liquid indium gallium alloy, that fills the cracks in the anode and restores the flow of electricity.

S. Korea announces 30% increase for Indium stockpile

admin — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:23:30 +0000

The Public Procurement Office said it would increase the reserves of six nonferrous metals, including copper, as well as rare metals, including cobalt, indium and lithium, to a stockpile of 80 days from the current 60 days.

Industry sources report Indium up $15/kg to $25/kg since last week

admin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:09:37 +0000

Gallium up $10/kg, Germanium up $30/kg

Chinese Metals Industry to pay $11 Billion over 5 years to Reduce Pollution

admin — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:06:04 +0000

China will spend 75 billion yuan ($11.15 billion) to curb heavy metal pollution in the next five years, according to a report of Hubei Daily.

China aims to reduce the amount of heavy metal pollutant emissions in 14 key provinces by 15 percent by 2015, compared with the level in 2007, and to keep the pollution levels in other provinces lower than those in 2007, the China Environment News reported, citing Zhou Shengxian, head of the Ministry of Environment Protection.

The State Council, China’s Cabinet, has approved the 12th Five Year Plan (2010-2015) on heavy metal pollution prevention and management, according to the website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

This plan listed 14 provinces or autonomous regions, including Hubei, as “key areas” to prevent heavy metal pollution, according to the Hubei Daily report. Key areas will be granted more funds.

The full text of the plan remains undisclosed, citing an unnamed official from the ministry.

China also aims to establish a fairly complete system of heavy metal pollution prevention and management by the year 2015, to set up an emergency response system and an environmental and health risk assessment system.

This policy dovetails with China’s recent policies to produce greater benefit to the country from metals exports. Export customers are certain to bear the burden of the program’s cost, and Chinese officials have remarked over the past year that they are comfortable with tripling the price of strategic industrial metals, in order to advance the country’s infrastructure.

Want Rare Earths? Come to China, but Hands Off Chinese companies

admin — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 17:19:33 +0000

China will launch a state-level investment review body to check that merger and acquisition deals struck by foreign firms in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies do not endanger “national security,” China’s State Council, the cabinet, said on Saturday.

The new regulation, which will come into effect in March, is set to install a new red-tape barrier for doing business in China, the world’s second largest economy where double-digit growth has attracted more than $105 billion in foreign direct investment last year.

The review will be conducted by a “foreign investment security review board” under the cabinet. Members of the board will come from the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce and other agencies on ad hoc basis.

The new body could enable China to turn the tables on some countries that have previously blocked its investments on national security grounds.

China suffered the biggest knock to its deal-making confidence in 2005, when state-controlled oil firm CNOOC Ltd withdrew an $18.5 billion bid for U.S. oil firm Unocal after the Senate moved to block it on national interest grounds.

But Beijing, which introduced an anti-trust law in 2008, has also blocked deals that do not conform with its national plans in the past.

The government wants to consolidate many heavy industries such as steel into the hands of a few big players, and it has blocked several foreign attempts to buy into its huge steel sector, by far the world’s biggest.

Much ado about little in British Indium find, REACH impact the big story

admin — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 17:11:32 +0000

While the press has been ringing bells from the rooftops about a find of Indium in Corning, the reality of the matter is that the novelty is in the location, a dead mine in a dead mining town, rather than the Indium find itself.

The indium concentration is between 90g and 100g per ton, according to reports. See related story on Indium mining here.

The EU has been living under the burden of the REACH (Registration, Evaluation & Authorisation of Chemicals) system since 2008.

REACH provides legislation for the production, use and transportation of all chemical substances within and imported into the EU. The Classification & Labelling of all substances is part of the Globally Harmonised System (GHS), which is applicable to virtually all materials and is a UN initiative.

So far, Mineral Ores and Concentrates have not had to be registered under REACH, as they have been defined as not chemically altered from the natural state. Notwithstanding this definition, from 1st December 2010, Ores and Concentrates will be subject to Classification & Labelling under EU law. The EU has established ECHA, the European Chemicals Agency, to administer the system and there are legal and financial consequences of the legislation for mining companies operating within Europe, or importing ores and concentrates into Europe.

The Minor Metals Trade Association (MMTA) has warned a UK government select committee that the REACH regulations are having a “highly destructive” impact on the European minor metals market. The group warned that “de facto import tariffs” are “destroying the industry for strategic raw materials in Europe” in written evidence submitted to the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee. “Reach legislation adds bureaucratic costs to every strategically important metal produced or imported into Europe in quantities of over one tonne per year,” the MMTA said. “REACH, unintentionally, has been a highly destructive regulation…”

As a result of the EU REACH regulations, the real question is not whether 90 grams of Indium per 1,000,000 grams of mine extract will launch the Cornish into a new iPod Renaissance, but whether they will have to fill the empty crevices in those iPods with some of the 999,910 grams of dirt laced with low concentrations of minerals subject to REACH, in order to enjoy each 90 grams of Indium supported Renaissance.