MOSCOW, February 25. /TASS/. Russia is provided with reserves of rare-earth metals for thousands of years but domestic demand should be developed to put these reserves into development, chairman of the Association of producers and consumers of rare and rare-earth metals Ruslan Dimukhamedov told TASS.
"The Ministry of Natural Resources notes indeed that the quantity of already available reserves of rare-earth metals is measured by millions of tons. At the same time, the volume of the domestic demand for rare-earth metals amounts to first thousands of tons. Therefore, already explored and available reserves and the prepared raw materials base is enough for thousands of years for us, and this is even without the appraisal of these reserves. Therefore, the question is not in the quantity of reserves but in bringing them into commercial exploration," Dimukhamedov said.
The ore grade in Russian rare and rare-earth metals is in line with the global level "but our geography plays against us," the expert said. "We have these deposits located in regions with the more difficult logistics, with more challenging climatic conditions. Therefore, appropriate investments in the infrastructure are need to support development of such deposits," he added.