Rare earths is a term commonly used to describe the 15 chemically similar, lanthanide elements which appear together towards the bottom of the Periodic Table. Two other elements, yttrium and scandium, which have similar chemical properties, are often also referred to as rare earths. Rare earths can be divided into "light" rare earths and "heavy" rare earths and both are present to varying degrees in all rare earth deposits. Rare earths are therefore recovered and processed together before sequential separation into individual rare earth elements. Prices for individual rare earths in pure oxide form can vary significantly with, generally speaking, the heavy rare earths trading at higher values. It should be noted the highest value heavy rare earth elements, namely europium, terbium and dysprosium, are contained at elevated levels at Zandkopsdrift by comparison to a number of other similar deposits being evaluated globally. It is also noteworthy that both the thorium and uranium content of the Zandkopsdrift resource are relatively low, at average grades of 178ppm and 47ppm respectively.

The oxides produced from processing rare earths are collectively referred to as rare earth oxides. Although rare earths are relatively common in the earth's crust, they often do not occur in high enough concentrations (or occur along with high levels of radioactive elements) to make their extraction economic. The oxides that are produced from processing the rare earth elements constitute the basic material that can be sold to the market or further processed into metals or alloys.> Their location in the periodic table is shown below.

        


Rare Earth Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
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In accordance with the Ministry of  Land and Resources, Hunan province has issued an announcement about controlling the mining amount of the first batch of tungsten, antimony and rare earth mines respectively of this year. Requirements are as followed:

Firstly, according to the first batch of index: the index of total tungsten concentrate (with 65% content of tungsten trioxide) control is 11,300 tons, among which the main mining index is 9250 tons and comprehensive utilization indicators are 2050 tons; the index of total antimony ores control is 18,000 tons; as for ion rare earth ores, the index comes to 500 tons.

The annual index of total mining control should be referenced to the second batch of the Ministry of Land and Resources, and the order of the comprehensive testing result will be issued respectively after the analysis of industrial policies, marketing direction and the implementing situation of the first batch of index.

                   

Secondly, Hunan will continue to suspend accepting  new registering application for mining and exploiting tungsten, antimony and rare earth ores, except for those situations having been ruled in the announcement.

Thirdly, all those municipal and continental Ministry of Land & Resources should spare no effort to do the verification work and submit to the provincial Ministry in written form before Mar. 10, 2013. The unfinished index of the total mining control will have no effectiveness.

Fourthly, department of Land and Resource of all levels must take effective measures to strengthen the regulation. All industries should sign a total mining contract, strict implementation of the statistical reporting system, to ensure that the total mining control would achieve tangible results.


Rare Earth Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
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China is effectively the monopoly supplier of rare earth elements in the world today. It became the dominant supplier by producing and supplying rare earths in the 1990s and early 2000s at a price western producers could not compete. As a result China anticipated Chinese production in 2012 is 96,000 tonnes according to a November 2012 presentation by industry consultants Industrial Minerals Corporation of Australia (IMCOA).

Chinese demand for rare earths has also continued to rise with organic growth for current applications and new applications have been found for many of the elements and in 2012 this is estimated to be 69% of global demand, or 79,000 tonnes. This is expected to rise to 107,000 tonnes by 2016. At the same time, China’s supply of rare earths is expected to fall as China tightens up environmental controls and curb illegal mining.

                  

The Chinese government is actively trying to consolidate the rare earth industry into major mining groups to assert state control over the supply of rare earths which it views as a strategic asset. These groups will centre on the 3 main rare earth production areas in China:

BaoTou Hi-Tech representing the Inner Mongolia government is taking the lead in the BaoTou area which predominantly produces light rare earths

JiangXi Copper Corp is taking the lead in consolidation in the Sichuan area which produces mainly light rare earths

In the Ionic clay region in the south of China it is expected that consolidation will result in 3 producing groups, China Minmetals, Chinalco and China Mining. This is where most of China’s heavy rare earths will be produced

As a consequence of the rising demand and limited supply China has introduced export quotas which have limited the supply of rare earths to the rest of the world. The Chinese export quota has been reduced substantially since 2005, from 65,580 tonnes to 30,996 tonnes in 2012.


Rare Earth Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: sales@chinatungsten.com
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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