Rare Earth Stock Picks from Ben Kramer-Miller

Last week, we spoke with Ben Kramer-Miller, chief analyst at miningWealth, about the markets for a few specific rare earths and about the rare earths industry in China.
Not surprisingly, Kramer-Miller had some interesting thoughts to share on those subjects, but he also spoke about some of the junior mining companies he likes in the rare earths space.
Of course, the junior mining space can be tricky for investors to navigate under the best of circumstances. And while it might be common sense to start by looking for a strong management team with a good project in a safe jurisdiction, things can get much more complicated, especially when it comes to rare earths.
For Kramer-Miller, it’s key to look at the expertise of the people behind the company.

Medallion Resources

Medallion is not your typical rare earths company, but for Kramer-Miller, it appears to have the lowest-risk approach from a technical standpoint. The company is aiming to produce rare earths from monazite, which it plans to source as a by-product from existing mineral sands operations.
“They don’t have to develop a mine,” Kramer-Miller said. “I think a lot of people think that’s potentially a negative thing because they don’t own their resource, and there are risks there, but at the same time, they don’t have to raise money to build a mine, they don’t have to permit a mine.”
Certainly, permitting a mine isn’t easy. Take Tasman Metals (TSXV:TSM), for example, which just announced that the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court has decided to cancel its mining lease for its Norra Karr heavy rare earths project.
“Medallion doesn’t have to do any of that,” Kramer-Miller added.

Texas Mineral Resources

Texas Mineral Resources, previously Texas Rare Earth Resources, holds the Round Top rare earths deposit in Texas. The company recently changed its name to reflect the fact that its deposit also holds potentially recoverable quantities of uranium, scandium and lithium.
“There are just a lot of small things to really like about the Round Top deposit,” Kramer-Miller said. “Right now, there is a quarry in operation right next to Round Top. So with respect to availability of equipment, proximity to infrastructure, the ability to get the mine permitted — for all of these things, there are risk-mitigating factors.”
However, Kramer-Miller was mostly positive on the by-product potential for Round Top.
“If you look at a lot of these rare earths projects, their viability at today’s prices, the operating metrics just don’t make sense,” he said. “You could probably make the same argument for Round Top and Texas Mineral Resources.”
That said, “they have a lot of uranium, a lot of scandium and both of those are going to have similar chemistry to the rare earths, meaning that if they can extract the rare earths, then it’s more likely than not that they can extract the uranium and the scandium.”