Rare Earth Revamp to be Complete by June in China

Rare Earth Deposits & Mining / Rare Earth Exploration, Mining, Processing, & Uses

Date posted: 01/30/16

Fan Feifei reports that the reorganization of the Chinese six major rare earth groups is expected to be complete by the end of June, 2016. Vice-Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin said. The companies core competence will be enhanced, he said, through closing down factories, weeding out and transferring outdated capacity. All the substantive restructuring will be finished by the end of June. He said ministry officials will also continue to implement targeted policies to support the reshuffle, and the six groups themselves will continue to improve their coordinating mechanism to further help stabilize the rare earth market. The six companies are ... China Northern Rare Earth (Group) High-tech Co Ltd, China Minmetals Corp, Aluminum Corp of China, Guangdong Rare Earth Corp, China South Rare Earth Group and Xiamen Tungsten Co Ltd. They are being reorganized as part of a national program to adjust and optimize the Chinese domestic rare earth industry. China South Rare Earth Group, Xiamen Tungsten and China Northern Rare Earth have already finished their restructuring. Among them, South Rare Earth Group is being integrated into four of the other firms, Ganzhou Rare Earth Group, Jiangxi Copper Cooperation, Jiangxi Rare Earth and Rare Metals Tungsten. As well as the restructuring, Xin said in future China will continue exercising tight controls on rare-earth mining, smelting and production quotas, and investigate and prosecute illegal and unauthorized projects. The price of rare earths have fallen sharply due to overcapacity and illegal mining. Major global rare-earth miners have been asked by governments to cut output. Last year, the ministry announced the first batch of rare earth production quotas, which included a 52,500-ton quota for mining, and a 50,050-ton quote for smelting. The ministry has said the rare earth industry is still considered strategically important within the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20).