The Future of Cerium And Its Effects On the Permanent Magnet Industry

Cerium, for one, is not a useable component of current permanent magnet creation, but nonetheless is critical to the health of the industry. However, the way established markets run for rare earth metals, and sister minerals mined must be a significant factor when calculating profit from mining operations. The current trends in rare earth mining are the catchphrase elements of neodymium, samarium, dysprosium, and terbium. These are the most common, seeing worldwide demand rising from applications in mobile device production and demand. Cerium in the past had been part of the targeted collection but has been overtaken in particular by neodymium and dysprosium.

As noted before, the sales of related extracted materials are crucial to maintaining a profit base for selling rare earth minerals, yet with demand declining for cerium, as well as lanthanum, both byproducts of neodymium mining, the profit margins are decreasing. Market management of supply and demand are at work in this case, as hot rare earth metal prices stay constant, and cerium prices dip from oversupply and under demand. The balance is therefore out of whack.

Balance of the Marketplace

In the most worldwide market, it is near impossible for manufacturers and miners to effect reasonable stability and control over fluctuations in supply and demand, yet in the unique business of rare earth mining, this was miraculously able to be struck with the byproducts of mining being desirable on the market as well. One may fluctuate in one direction, while the sister elements traverse the market in another. It was a worthy system of debate and inspection, but perhaps it is too lost at this point to pay much more attention to. Modern economics simply requires an independent separation of supply and demand in order for the larger-scale economic functions to take place. Economic nature is taking its due course.

Controlling the Marketplace

In the past, two identifiable ways were rationally administered to at least balance the weight of supply and demand economics. In terms of pricing, a responsive market works to rationally rice point with consumer demand. The higher the demand, the higher the price, though too high of a price, and demand drops as consumers find a more economically reasonable product. The second factor is controlled supply, where quantities are withheld to artificially raise prices, and this is what is happening currently with the rare earth magnet market.