Miao Changxing, deputy director of the Ministry of Industrial Policy, said recently that the current development of China's economic situation is grim. In order to accelerate the nine industries such as rare earth, and tungsten, we should promote the mergers and reorganizations of industry, especially to speed up mergers and acquisitions of overcapacity industries, for example, the rare earth industry. The rare earth industry is expected to speed up positive for the relevant leading enterprises.

Chinatungsten Online reported, on December 8, the China Research Center of corporate mergers and acquisitions held its sixteenth year in Beijing Jiaotong University, Miao Changxing emphasized during the meeting, that China will accelerate the mergers and acquisitions of automobile, steel, cement, ship medicine, electrolytic aluminum, rare earth, electronic information, agriculture, industry and other industries and fields like tungsten industry.

At the same time, it is necessary to eliminate institutional barriers, strengthening policy coordination, strengthen service guidance, coordinate and solve problems encountered in corporate mergers and acquisitions of rare earth and other industries.

Fig. The statistics of rare earth concept stock increase 

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, 3G Version: http://3g.chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, WML Version: http://m.chinatungsten.com

China exported 16,265 tons of rare-earth ore, metals and compounds last year, falling below the annual export quota of 30,966 tons, according to official data.

The exports last year also marked a 3.5 percent decline from the export volume in 2011, according to data released by the China Customs Statistics Information Center. In December, China exported 3,252 tons of rare-earth ore, metals and compounds.

China has imposed a quota system to curb production and exports to conserve resources and protect the environment after decades of excessive exploitation.

Last month, the Ministry of Commerce set the first batch of rare earth export quotas for 2013 at 15,501 tons, which will be shared by 24 companies. The ministry said that will account for about half of the full-year quota.

The value of China's exports of the rare earths tumbled 66.1 percent to US$906 million last year, Customs data showed.

The prices of rare earths, which had surged for years because of supply concerns, have fallen sharply since late 2011 due to waning demand and increased supply. China is the world's dominant supplier of rare earths, a group of 17 chemical elements used in high-tech products, although the country holds less than a quarter of the world's reserves.

Rare Earth Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, 3G Version: http://3g.chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, WML Version: http://m.chinatungsten.com

Mines and Geosciences Bureau Director Leo Jasareno  yesterday said he will again seek the assistance of China Geological Survey in looking for rare earth elements.

“We will try to reach out to CGS to find out what their plans are for this year,” he said.

CGS representatives were expected to arrive in the country last year, however, communication with the agency stopped at the height of the Philippines-China standoff over the Scarborough shoal.

Jasareno emphasized that the standoff is unlikely to derail the Philippines’ economic relations with China.

“We already followed it up, but, we haven’t received any reply from the Chinese experts, but of course this is speculative,” he said in an earlier interview.

The Philippines is pushing exploration projects aimed at developing its rare earth deposits following China’s decision to cap exports to the global market.

The Philippines is already conducting its own exploration surveys in Nueva Vizcaya and Palawan, where rare earth deposits were found to be close to copper-gold mines.

“Notably, Palawan and Nueva Vizcaya are the best places to start. What’s important is to find out if these (rare earth elements) really exist since there are indications of mineralization in these two areas,” he said.

He revealed that the government has earmarked P20 million  for rare earth elements development.

“The P20 million is for the entire reconnaissance phase for the two-year preliminary survey,” he explained.

However, once the three stages of exploration go well, the program may take five years, according to Jasareno.

Jasareno added that the MGB will also seek the assistance of the Department of Budget and Management for the said exploration.

Rare earth metals are a group of elements that are used in a wide range of products we use every day, including hard drives and hybrid cars. Their properties, notably as lightweight magnets, make them key to the ongoing miniaturization of electronics and the growth of green technologies.

China recognized the importance of these elements decades ago and now supplies almost all the rare earth materials in the world.

At present, China produces nearly 97 percent of the world’s rare earth materials.

“China will still process our (rare earth elements) once we are able to get hold of it after this exploration,” he said.

Further limits on Chinese exports of rare-earth elements also threaten to raise costs for companies in an array of industries, including cellphone makers, oil refiners and high-technology batteries.

In December 2011, the Chinese Commerce Ministry announced an initial cut of 27 percent in its rare earth elements exports quota for 2012 as part of the crackdown on illegal mining of the rare earth oxides.

Rare Earth Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, 3G Version: http://3g.chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, WML Version: http://m.chinatungsten.com

The Metals Report: Your last interview with us took place in July. Have there been any real significant industry developments in the last six months that investors should be aware of?

Alex Knox: There are, actually. The tenor of the rare earth element (REE) space has changed quite dramatically in the last six or seven months.

TMR: What are the biggest factors that have influenced the business?

AK: The general lack of ability to raise financing has severely affected the junior companies, especially those that didn’t have a deposit or had a deposit at a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) stage. Investors have seemed to have lost interest, and certainly there is far less news about exploration for new deposits or developing deposits that hadn’t reached a PEA stage by last summer.

The focus has shifted from exploration to development. Because of the drop in prices for the commodities themselves since that time, costs have become extremely important, and that includes the costs of doing a feasibility or a prefeasibility study as well as production costs.

TMR: What has been the cause in the drop in prices for the elements during this time period?

AK: I’m no economist, but the lack of projected world growth plays a part. It was expected that these commodities were going to be needed in significant additional quantities, and the lack of growth has slowed demand. China, though it’s not in recession by any stretch, has slowed down its development.

TMR: China is now talking about tightening up its environmental regulations. Is that going to have a significant effect on either REE supply or prices?

AK: I think it’s going to. China is still in the driver’s seat, especially on the heavy rare earth element (HREE) side, it has said for years that it was going to try to reduce its output in order to conserve its low-cost sources of production of HREEs. Certainly, any spark that’s been left in the REE market is on the HREE side. We’ve all heard of the impending production of Lynas Corp. and Molycorp Inc., which, along with a few others, are probably going to satiate the light rare earth (LREE) market with the development of additional production. But because there is still no significant production of HREEs in the Western world and many of these deposits, half a dozen at least, have reached at least the post-PEA stage and are approaching a production decision, there is still a place for HREEs, despite the drop in prices and consumer attempts at HREE substitution or recycling.

TMR: Is the number of survivors in the industry going to be curtailed drastically?

AK: That was always going to be the case. Two years ago, when over 200 companies were exploring for REEs, the sensible companies were aiming to be low-cost producers. And when prices start to drop, the low-cost producer of any commodity, especially HREEs, is going to be the last one standing, and will be available to a) acquire additional sources of production from the failed producers or b) stay in production and wait for times to get better in this business. As long as we’ve been in this business, we know that prices fluctuate dramatically over the years. So investors have always been looking for the company that could either reach production and distribution first, and/or the company that had the lowest production costs so that when the free market price started to fall, this company would be able to hang in there the longest.

TMR: What’s the ballpark range of capital expenditure needed to put a REE mine into production?

AK: Again, specific numbers are not my bailiwick; I’m an exploration geologist. But proximity to infrastructure is a big cost factor. If you have to transport your chemicals, raw materials and construction materials a long distance and then transport your product a long distance back to be sold, that’s obviously going to be more expensive.

The second factor is metallurgy. You have to take these REE elements, break down the minerals that they occur in, get them into solution and then be able to precipitate them in a form that will allow them to be separated into individual elements so that they can be sold at a maximum profit. If your minerals are hard to break down, require expensive acid treatments or even an acid manufacturing plant at your site, which costs hundreds of millions of dollars, these are going to carry price tags that many companies can’t cover.

Another important cost factor is the cost associated with anomalous radioactivity. These deposits tend to accumulate uranium and thorium. That’s just the nature of the beast. The key question is, are these radioelements occurring within the minerals that contain the REEs, or are they in subsidiary minerals, such as thorite? The common REE mineral that contains significant radioactivity is monazite, which is commonly found in certain LREE deposits. If you have monazite or other REE minerals that contain the radioelements, then these will have to be disposed of later on, as opposed to on site. That’s going to be extremely expensive. If, on the other hand, the REEs are in a separate mineral, they can be left behind and put back in the tailings, which carries a significantly lower cost for the producer.

Rare Earth Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, 3G Version: http://3g.chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, WML Version: http://m.chinatungsten.com