Prices of medium-to-heavy rare earths likely to keep rising in China on tight supply

BEIJING, March 14(Xinhua) -- Prices of medium-to-heavy rare earth minerals are expected to continue rising in China due to tight supplies, analysts forecast.

On Monday, China Southern Rare Earth Group, a major rare earth producer in east China's Jiangxi province, announced to raise the price of dysprosium oxide by 3 percent to be 1.34 million yuan per metric ton (tonne) and that of terbium oxide by 1 percent to be 3.05 million yuan/tonne this week.

It is the second time that the rare earth producer has raised the prices of dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide in March, reflecting the tight supply of medium-to-heavy rare earths.

According to statistics from China Securities Journal, the price of dysprosium oxide has increased by 11 percent so far this year.

Analysts of Huatai Securities pointed out that since December 2018, the amount of the mixed rare earth carbonates imported from Myanmar has dropped significantly. It is expected that the amount of the mixed rare earth carbonates imported from Myanmar in 2019 will be difficult to maintain the level in 2018 and the prospects are not optimistic.

According to China's Customs, the country imported 30,298 tonnes of mixed rare earth carbonates in 2018, of which the imports from Myanmar accounted for 85.3 percent.

It is learned that the rare earth minerals in Myanmar belong to the ionic rare earth ore, an important raw material source for the production of medium-to-heavy rare earths in China. In the whole year of 2018, the amount of the imported medium-to-heavy rare earth oxides accounted for 53 percent of the domestic medium-to-heavy rare earth mining quota.

Meanwhile, Ganzhou, a medium-to-heavy rare earth producing area with its output accounting for 50 percent of the country's annual production quota has seen production suspension, due to environmental problems, and the time for resumption of production is still uncertain, the analysts added.

Under such circumstances, the listed companies investing mainly in the medium-to-heavy rare earths will benefit a lot, such as Rising Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd (600259.SH), Shenghe Resources Holding Co. (600392.SH), Xiamen Tungsten (600549.SH) and China Minmetals Rare Earth (000831.SZ). (Edited by Hu Pingchao, hupingchao@xinhua.org)