Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX RIM), Research and Coverage

Rimfire Pacific Mining Ltd (ASX: RIM). Rimfire is a mineral exploration company in New South Wales. It does not mine and does not sell anything, so the money it spends comes from shareholders rather than from sales. Its main subject is scandium, with gold and silver in one older project. Scandium needs explaining, because almost nobody holds it in a portfolio knowingly. It is a metal that, added to aluminium in small amounts, makes an alloy that is both lighter and stronger than aluminium alone and can be welded without losing strength. That matters for aircraft, for electric vehicle structures and for the ceramic parts in solid oxide fuel cells. The market for it is tiny, a few hundred tonnes a year worldwide, and there are very few primary producers, so a company with a large scandium deposit is making a bet that the market grows rather than that it can take share in an existing one.