The Chinese Government declared last Sunday that the country’s rare earth minerals will effectively become state property from the 1st of October this year. The government will oversee the development of the industry around rare earths directly, on grounds of national security. The regulations say that China will set up a full traceability system for rare earth minerals, where companies will submit their filings regularly so as to abide by internally set export quotas. This is rare earth minerals in the chemical sense, specifically the 17 elements including Scandium, Yttrium, Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Erbium, Holmium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Lutetium. The ones we’re most interested in here are neodymium, praseodymium, and to a lesser…