schreef:
THERE are some mining stories that just keep on giving.
Back in 1997, this reporter alerted readers of The Australian to the fact that Jervois Mining had found a rare metal, scandium, while drilling for nickel and cobalt near Port Macquarie in NSW. At the time, scandium was selling for about twice the price of gold.
Duncan Pursell, who ran JRV then and runs it today, was very bullish. Jervois, he said, planned to mine enough scandium to meet about 10 per cent of world demand. Wow, the excitement.
Jervois, of course, has had its ups and several downs since then but - long-term investors will be pleased to hear - the junior is a scandium play once more, only this time the big hope is located further inland, at Nyngan, NSW.
But, 13 years on (to judge by the chat rooms), there is scandium excitement once more.
Jervois today signed a joint venture agreement with Toronto-listed EMC Metals. The partners plan to produce up to 20 tonnes of scandium oxide a year.
There was no holding back in the announcement. Most of the world’s scandium - which is used in aerospace applications, sports products, laser research, electronics and solid oxide fuel cells - comes as a by-product from mines in China, Russia and the Ukraine.
Potential buyers have, apparently, been beating a path to Jervois’s door, with companies from California, Japan and Austria having made approaches. One wanted 50 tonnes of scandium oxide a year, another 30 tonnes.
A world leader in scandium - and the stock only at 0.6c (and that’s up 0.2c on the day).