Rare earth mineral exploration

From the point of view of the development of new technologies, today there is no more widely discussed topic in the world than an exploration of rare earth elements with further production and consumption of them.

The most important characteristic feature of the present stage of production and consumption of rare earth is the displacement of the center of interest towards the medium-heavy rare earth group with the appearance of an excess of a light group. Today in the rare earth business, those who make rare earth metals investments and having a guaranteed supply of heavy raw materials will be able to create an effective (extraction) scheme for their separation.

World average metal production of medium-heavy rare earth is now about 15,000 tons/year. The whole mining is concentrated mainly in China. The proportion of Yttrium is 60% among these metals. Analyzing the sources of rare earth and the ecological situation in China, we can conclude that China does not have new sources of heavy rare earth (Tb, Dy, Y) that are promising from the economic and environmental point of view, even for providing its own short-term (and world current) needs.

And this is not because their ion-adsorption clays have already left the game, but because the current tightening in environmental and legislative regulation with the closure of illegal mining by primitive methods and switching from exports to domestic consumption has greatly reduced the level of production.

Rare earth metal exploration in Kazakhstan

Recently Kazakhstan launched the project of evaluation of rare-earth elements deposits in the main ore-wealthy areas of the country. About twenty prospective for rare earth exploration plots selected on the territory of the Republic will be studied and explored.

Several groups of professional geologists have got a task to explore the sites in the Central, Southern, Eastern, and North-Western parts of the Republic. Kazakhstan's geological survey sector received more than 10 million dollars of private investment in exploration in 2017.

In 2018, the government plans to spend over 700 thousand dollars for rare earth elements exploration activities in the main ore-wealthy areas. Upon completion of the work, high-tech companies from South Korea and Japan will be involved to develop the promising deposits.

The principle of maximum efficiency of geological exploration for rare earth exploration companies reflects the need to achieve the greatest results with minimal outlays of labor and time.

The effectiveness of exploration results depends mainly on:

• the natural value of the deposit;
• the quantity and quality of reserves of useful components;
• technological properties of useful components;
• mining and geological operating conditions.

Also, it is largely determined by the existing requirements for the reliability of the geological and economic assessment of reserves. Thus, the principle of maximum efficiency implies the obligatory fulfillment of the conditions for the completeness of research and the optimality of the exploration system. Having significant reserves of rare earth metals and with sufficient level of invest in Kazakhstan exploration and mining industry, the country could become a new world center for the extraction of rare earth elements.