Week in Review: Lithium Sources, Prices Rise and a Rare Earths Discovery

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Before we head into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the week that was with some of the stories here on MetalMiner:

When the next economic crisis hits, what will be the cause? MetalMiner’s Stuart Burns looked at one possibility.
Europe’s dependence on imports of lithium is leading to one investment partnership that will seek to find and develop sources of the metal in Europe.
Copper prices bounced back up last month, Irene Martinez Canorea wrote in her Copper Monthly Metals Index (MMI) report.
In other news, a discovery of a deposit of rare-earth oxides under Japanese waters could be a big deal … one day.
The LME aluminum price soared last month, hitting a more than seven-year high.
It was a down month for many of the metals tracked in our Renewables MMI basket.
LME nickel prices also rose last month, albeit at a slower rate than in 2017, Martinez Canorea explains.
U.S. imports of grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) dropped considerably last month, from over 3,000 tons in March to less than 1,000 in April, MetalMiner Executive Editor Lisa Reisman explained.