"It was very well received by U.S. institutional investors -- we were oversubscribed by more than three and a half times relative to our minimum financing expectations," Peter Cashin, Quest's president and chief executive, said.

"We discounted the basket price by 39%, took a higher cut-off grade, used a lower mill recovery than is indicated in preliminary metallurgical work, and added a 25% contingency fee, and even after all of that, our cost per tonne was still just $102," Cashin adds. "You can't kill this project - even if you put a 25% surcharge on it."

John Kaiser, a U.S.-based newsletter analyst who owns stock in the company praised the project's fundamentals... offers substantial speculative upside into the $10-20 range using fairly conservative future REO price assumptions and as high as $35-$60 using the more optimistic price set favored by JP Morgan in its Sept. 29 industry update.

Cashin "What gets me excited is that it's a 114-million-tonne resource down to 135 metres. All of our holes were stropped in mineralization between 70 and 135 metres below surface. Two hundred and fifty to three hundred metres seems to be the bottom of the mineralized system so we could easily double the resource."

So far this year Quest has drilled an additional 81 holes (not included in the preliminary economic assessment). The majority of them were drilled in a high-grade pegmatite near surface. Of those holes, results from just 11 have been released so far and the company anticipates it can report 15-20 holes every couple of weeks from now until the first quarter of 2011. Heavy REE represent between 39% and 77% of the total REO content intersected in the latest drilling.

The company is in discussions with industrial companies in Japan and Korea for potential future investment or joint ventures