SideNote: With the saber rattling growing louder today between the U.S. and China. And knowing China needs to hoard all the metals they can get their hands on to keep their giant industrial production wheel turning. I would think that the DoD would have a more keen interest today then back in 2013, with wanting to build their stockpile of Antimony for military use.

GRIM

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Department of Defense reverses its public stance on rare earths, recommends building a US$130M stockpile of the strategic minerals

Shane Lasley, Mining News
March 31, 2013

(excerpts)
According to Dan McGroarty – one of the few people outside of the Pentagon and the U.S. House Armed Services Committee to have seen the report – the DoD named 19 of the mined materials that are in shortfall, the remaining four are classified.

The list of non-rare earth materials deemed in short enough supply to warrant stockpiling include antimony, bismuth, gallium and tantalum.

McGroarty told Mining News that China is a common thread that binds all of the unclassified metals and minerals on the stockpile list.

“China is a top-tier supplier for all 19 metals and minerals that they identified as being in shortfall,” the president of American Resources Policy Network explained.

China’s dominance as a supplier of many of the metals of strategic importance to the U.S. Military has been a concern for many policymakers on Capitol Hill. Pentagon’s previous laidback approach to ensuring an adequate supply of rare earths drew sharp reproach from U.S. Sens. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo.

In their letter to Gates, the trio wrote, “In our view, it is a fundamental responsibility of DoD industrial policy to have a comprehensive understanding of the security of our defense supply chain, which requires understanding detailed knowledge of the sources and types of components and materials found in our weapon systems.”

The Alaska and Colorado lawmakers requested the DoD provide Congress with a written report on its REE demand and “propose real solutions on rare earth availability.”

As a result, beyond the US$130 million suggestion to accumulate a stash of heavy rare earth elements, the report details the need to build a US$1.11 billion stockpile of 13 non-REE metals and minerals.

“The question now, in a Washington where the government is funded from month to month, and strategic thinkers are savants who see an hour into the next news cycle, is whether the U.S. government can muster a sustained policy to reverse our metals dependency – before the shortfalls posited in the Pentagon’s hypothetical scenarios become all too real,” McGroarty wrote in a recent article for Real Clear World.

This is not only an about-face for the Pentagon but is also a reversal of a Washington, D.C. trend of diminishing its stockpile of minerals.

“Even experts in the industry are hard-pressed to recall when the U.S. government last added to its metals and minerals inventory – and for good reason,” wrote McGroarty. “Since the implosion of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the U.S. defense stockpile has been treated as a kind of raw materials garage-sale, with nearly all metals marked for a phased sell-off – calibrated so as not to unduly undercut current metal prices. Stockpile silver went to the U.S. Mint for the striking of silver dollars, an almost literal swords-into-plowshares swap.”

While heartened by the Pentagon’s about-face on the importance of having a reliable supply of heavy rare earths, The Strategic Materials Advisory Council – a Washington, DC-based nonprofit group comprised of former U.S. government leaders and strategic materials experts – does not believe buying rare earths from China to place in a U.S. stockpile goes far enough.

“The root cause of these material shortages is our ongoing dependence on Chinese suppliers,” said Strategic Materials Advisory Council Executive Director Jeff Green. “While it is encouraging that DoD acknowledges these risks, we urge DoD to move from theoretical studies to the only appropriate and permanent solution – the creation and nurturing of a U.S-based rare earth supply chain.”

(And Silverado Gold Mines could help the nation fill that need for a U.S. supply of Antimony) GRIM