It was a week of reflection this week as, while many companies carried on rolling out their Q1 results, others got in touch to tell us how 2011 had shaped prices in mineral markets.
IM learned, for example, that the floods which besieged Thailand at the end of 2011 were still having an impact on end markets such as hard disk drives and camera lenses.
The floods mean that demand still hasn’t picked up in these markets which, in turn, has affected some rare earths markets.
This has affected the cerium, dysprosium, neodymium, samarium and lanthanum markets.
But also, it was a time for reflection in IM....