Three Central Enterprises To Integrate Rare Earth Resources Blocked &Nbsp; Local Governments Reluctant To Release

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But this reporter learned from the relevant channels in October 11th, because

A person in charge of the Ministry of mines and mineral resources admitted to this reporter that Minmetals has been fighting for seven or eight years in the Jiangxi rare earth industry, but has not been able to get the mining rights of the local rare earth and can only engage in rare earth processing.

"Acquiring rare earth resources and building a complete chain of rare earth industry has been our goal in Jiangxi, but because of local interests, we can only live in the downstream processing sector."

The person in charge said.

In October 11th, an official of the Hunan provincial chamber of commerce also told our reporter that rare earth is one of the main mineral products in Hunan province. Hunan supports the rare earth enterprises in the province to become stronger and bigger.

According to the reporter, Hunan is one of the rare cities in southern China. Not long ago, the Hunan Rare Earth Research Institute formally rejected the acquisition of Minmetals and Chinalco, and set up a new company to establish its own door.

Frequent "pseudo rare earth"

At the end of September, in a press release sent to our correspondent, Chinalco emphasized that Chinalco would "strengthen rare and rare earth plates on the platform of Jiang Wei holding group" and "focus on developing rare and rare earth resources".

After the release of the news, China Aluminum (601600.SH), a listed company of Chinalco holdings, has been trading for two consecutive days.

A number of non-ferrous industry analysts told our reporter that with the concept of rare earth, the price of Chinalco will only rise.

But then Chinalco announced that the company had no plans to participate in the development of rare earths, and its share price fell.

In fact, it is difficult for Chinalco to get Jiangxi's rare earth resources.

According to our reporter, at present, Jiangxi rare earth mining rights are basically concentrated in two hands of Ganzhou rare earth mineral company and Jiangxi copper. Jiangwu group does not have mining licenses for rare earth metals.

Even if Jiang tungsten group has rare earth resources, Chinalco may not be able to bring resources into the capsule.

According to our reporter, before the Chinalco, the powerful Minmetals Group has been working for more than seven years in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, but has not mastered the rare earth resources.

The head of the above five minerals and mineral resources department told the reporter that because of lack of resources, Minmetals could only take advantage of its own technological advantages, take the rare earth separation link as the entry point for entering the rare earth industry, and plan to integrate the rare earth processing enterprises in Jiangxi to form a monopoly position in Jiangxi.

The breakthrough point of Chinalco for Jiangxi market is also the separation of rare earth elements.

Although Chinalco and Minmetals do not have any rare earth resources in Jiangxi, the struggle between the two sides has not ceased.

According to our reporter's understanding, Minmetals has jointly formed the Jiangxi tungsten Group Co., Ltd. in 2003 with Jiang tungsten group, and positioned the strategic focus to develop the rare earth business.

An insider from Minmetals said to our reporter that in rare earth separation technology, Chinalco is far inferior to Minmetals.

Like Chinalco and Minmetals, China's color is also known as "pseudo rare earth" by the industry, but it will become the first central enterprise to get the mining rights of rare earths.

According to public information, the Guangdong Pearl River Rare Earth Smelter has a capacity of 3000 tons, while the national development and Reform Commission has approved the relocation of the Pearl River Rare Earth Smelter to the new Fengxian County of Guangdong and can expand to 7000 tons.

At present, China has joined three rare earth processing enterprises to form the South China rare earth company in new Fengxian County, known as the largest rare earth separation enterprise in China.

The main purpose of the move to Xinfeng county is to acquire the mining rights of the new Fengxian County rare earth resources.

Informed sources familiar with the situation told our reporter that China and Guangdong may cooperate with Fengxian County's largest nonferrous metal enterprise, Guangsheng nonferrous metals, to develop new rare earth resources.

Guangsheng nonferrous metal is the only legal rare earth mining enterprise in Guangdong province. At present, the company has acquired 3 of the 4 rare earth mining licenses in Guangdong province. The person familiar with the matter said that "Guangsheng nonferrous metal is acquiring the last mining certificate".

However, the person familiar with the matter believes that Guangsheng nonferrous metals also wants to develop into a local rare earth magnate, and there is competition between them. And even if the cooperation between China and Guangsheng is possible, it is unlikely that China will gain the right to exploit all the new rare earth resources in Fengxian County.

In addition, Minmetals, Chinalco and central China are preparing for the right to exploit rare earth in Jiangsu, Guangxi, Hunan and other southern regions, but until now, they have only stayed in the state of "pseudo rare earth".

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Deep processing breakthrough

The control of rare earth resources by local governments has made the three central enterprises only invest in the middle end separation smelter and downstream deep processing areas.

According to our reporter, in the deep processing technology of rare earth, five mines and medium color are the leading sheep in China. The two have established the hegemony of rare earth processing in the southern rare earth area.

In fact, in the rare earth industry chain, the technology threshold in the downstream processing field is the highest.

Despite years of accumulation, China has made some achievements in the application of rare earth elements, but it is still far behind developed countries such as Japan and the United States.

According to the Research Report of China Rare Earth Society, the application of rare earth resources in China is still quite different from those in developed countries such as Japan and the United States. Many materials are still in the state of tracking and imitation.

Especially in pforming research achievements into productive forces, China's speed is simply not enough to catch up with Japan.

Although resources are not available, the central enterprises have unique advantages in processing technology, which is also the backing for the central enterprises to enter the rare-earth industrial chain.

Tang Yinxuan, a professor at Zhejiang University and a rare earth luminescent material expert, told reporters that if there is no deep processing technology, even if he owns resources, he will have to give up resources to others, while the central enterprises such as Minmetals have deep processing advantages.

The five Minmetals people told reporters that the five mines rely on processing technology to integrate the upstream and downstream industries chain.

Zhou Zhongshu, President of Minmetals Group, told our reporter that the five mines will pform their resource advantages into economic advantages through the introduction of foreign advanced technology and rational integration of domestic rare earth resources.

Local forces counterattack

At the time of decision making forces to integrate rare earth, the battle for rare earth resources has entered the white hot state, and all parties in the rare-earth industrial chain are hoping to get a share in the rare earth integration feast.

On the one hand, the actions of local governments against central enterprises are underway.

Recently, the 14 cities in the 5 southern provinces of Ganzhou, which are based on the Central Committee of the CPC, have just held two general meeting of the alliance. They have basically decided to form the trend of joint exploitation and exploitation of rare earth resources.

The informed sources told reporters that Guangsheng nonferrous metals and Ganzhou rare earth are negotiating further cooperation and do not rule out the possibility of equity cooperation.

On the other hand, the rare-earth enterprises have been attacking cities and towns everywhere.

In addition to the clash between Chinalco and Minmetals in Jiangxi and the competition for resources in Guangdong, China's largest rare-earth enterprise, Baotou Steel Rare Earth, is not willing to dominate the north. It has announced that it will spend 230 million yuan on the acquisition of three rare earth separation processing enterprises in Ganzhou, so that 11 thousand and 500 tons of heavy rare earth separation capacity can be obtained. Minmetals has also made preparations for Guangdong's entry into the Guangdong and competes with China's color.

In the stock market, for a few months, investors who are on the top of the rare earth stocks have been chased by investors. Baotou Steel Rare Earth and Guangsheng nonferrous metals have been praised by investors for their pure rare earth concept.

But the decentralization of mining rights in the rare earth industry is the biggest obstacle to industry consolidation.

According to our reporter, recently, the government has launched an investigation of rare earth mining rights, while collecting local mining rights, the integration of 3-5 leading enterprises in the industry remains unchanged.