I was wondering where you found that arizona breccia pipes had low ppm Rhenium? Also, how many PPM is Low?  I have two breccia pipe claims and am working on two more. I have not seen anything in print anywhere that talked about Rhenium in the pipes. Several of my surface mineralizations have 1oos of ppm Moly so I might expect some Rhenium in there or in the actual ore of the pipe.

Unfortunately, at this time there would be no way to recover anything but the uranium, since the White Mesa mill only recovers uranium and vanadium.
Arizona needs a specialty mill for breccia pipe ores.

Gregory Yount
Manager
The NAU project, LLC.

Your survey is generally correct but as mentioned above the 125 years old mine of Bingham Canyon generates Re contained in the molybdenite which used to go to Molymet in Chile where the molybdenite was toll-roasted into Mo products. The Rhenium was too low in concentration to be paid as a credit despite its value. That is one of the reasons that from 2012-13 RTZ who owns Bingham Canyon has invested over $250 mln in a new molybdenum autoclave process to recover both the Mo and Re that was sent to Chile. Thus the US will add another 2-3 mt per year of home production and Chile might in theory lose some units. The other point is that the price reach $12,000 per kg on the free market in August 2008 but is now (Oct 2010) $4500 per kg Re having reached a low of circa $25000-3000 per kg Re in mid 2009. Rhenium is noth rare in nature and in commercial production and is also currently unsubstitutable in nickel base alloys for single crystal turbine blades. The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine operates at 1700 degrees centigrade for which these alloys are designed.

Anthony Lipmann
Lipmann Walton & Co Ltd, UK
Trade suppliers and recyclers of Rhenium