china plans to purchase 18 thousand tons..

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August 24, 10:03 am | By June Yang
According to local media National Business Daily, State Reserve Bureau has reached an agreement with Baotou Rare Earth Co.(600111.SH) to purchase 18 thousand tons of light rare earth from the latter with the cost of around 10 billion yuan.
The news comes from an anonymous source close to rare earth reservation. According to him, the purchasing will start in September.
Apart from Baotou Rare Earth, other key enterprises including Minmentals Resources Co. and Chalco Co. are also the trading parties.
According to the source, purchased rare earth includes 50 tons of europia oxide, 1500 tons of yttrium oxide,300 tons of dysprosium sesquioxide and 60 tons of teribium oxide. But there's no official response to the news.
Zhang Zhong, general manager of Batou Rare Earth once said that rare earth reserve is of great significance when China cut export quota.According to Zhang, rare earth reservation is the preparation of international competition.
But more experts showed their concerns since light rare earth has been in excessive production capacity.
Statistic shows that price of neodymium metal has decreased from 0.7 to 0.75 million yuan per ton in June to 0.59 to 0.6 million yuan per ton yesterday.
Figures show that rare earth production capacity out of China will increase by 10 times, and Ma Rongzhang, general secretary of Chinese Rare Earth Association said that only Molycorp in U.S. and Lynas Co. in Australia can supply the global rare earth demand out of China before 2015.