More and more non-Chinese rare earths miners are turning aggressive with their respective exploration programs, wanting to get a slice of the rare earths pie in anticipation of the sector's potential supply glut in the wake of China's planned stricter monitoring on its rare earths industry.

This, in spite of the possibility that more than 90 per cent of them could be wiped out because of price valuations, according to Jack Lifton of Illinois-based Technology Metals Research.

Rare earths miners like Peak Resources of Australia and Black Sea Metals Inc. and U.S. Rare Earths, Inc. from the United States have been busy pumping their exploration activities for the coveted precious yet not so really rare earths metals.

Peak Resources is currently expediting the drilling at its Ngualla Rare Earth Project in southern Tanzania, where metallurgical test work had shown that applying a simple sulphuric acid leach process may be effective on the central southern rare earth zone. So far, Peak Resources has accomplished drilling 897 metres of the extensive 30,000 metre boring program aimed for 2012, interconnecting deeply weathered carbonatite, which has shown high grade rare earth mineralisation from surface to depths of up to 130 metres.

U.S. Rare Earths, Inc. on Friday announced that surface rock sampling at its Idaho and Montana properties had given off the presence of Total Rare Earth (TRE) ranging as high as 26 per cent.

Black Sea Metals Inc., on the other hand, also on Friday, announced plans to build what could be the first non-Chinese heavy rare earth element (HREE) processing plant. To be built in the Black Sea region near a proximal source of HREE feedstock, the project is estimated to cost $80 million.

However, not necessarily pointing to the three above-mentioned rare earths miners, Mr Lifton said of the 250 to 260 globally listed REE public companies, only 5 per cent to 10 per cent would remain in operation. The rest, sad to say, would likely turn to dust.

"Between 90 per cent to 95 per cent of the remaining junior miners will be wiped out. Investors should understand there is no single REE market. There is a market for some of the individual REEs - the critical REEs. But for at least half of the REEs, production and usage are tiny and there is no 'market' to speak of," he said.

For many REEs, production exceeds demand and will for the foreseeable future, he added.

He also pointed out that for the rare earths industry, only five rare earth elements really matter for the world. These are terbium, europium, yttrium and the more popular neodymium and dysprosium.

"There is not now, nor has there ever been, any production of dysprosium from outside of China," he said.

"None of the mines are at any stage where we can predict when they will be commercially producing. Two to four years out would be the earliest any new dysprosium production could occur outside of China. Dysprosium is already in short supply."

Bottomline, unless the present crop of rare earths miners are mining these "priority" precious elements, there is really not much to offer for the consumers and users of rare earths.