Here's a translation of an interesting very recent Chinese article on RE production and stockpiles.
(My clarification attempts in brackets.)
Rare earth export "price increments Save" trend is expected to improve
Published: May 25, 2016 Posted by: Baotou Rare Earth Products Exchange
Source: China Nonferrous Metals
(As at) April 2016, China's export volume of rare earth is 3696 tons, representing an increase of 47.5%, the chain fell 14.9 percent; the average export unit price of $ 6 / kg, compared with last year fell 49.4%, a decline of 16.7%, (this is the largest price fall in the history of RE production.) this price has He fell to the end of history.
Since the beginning of 2015, the Chinese government canceled up to 17 years of rare earth export quota policy, (and) opened the door to exports of rare earths. the government canceled the second half of the export tariffs, prompting a (rise in) rare earth exports. continued to rise. since then the RMB (rise) against the US dollar, (together with) the increase in volume and a drop in price of rare earth exports exacerbated the situation. The cause of this situation (is) due to, among reflux increased manufacturing demand, the most important root causes of overcapacity and still insufficient to lower demand resulting in rare earth prices continued to fall, in addition to "rare earth black (market)" chain of the informal market is still severe enough to squeeze people and cannot (be) ignored.
... China's rare earth separation capacity of up to 450,000 tons / year, of which six of the Group of state-owned capital company's production capacity (is) 280,000 tons / year, accounting for 62.2% of total capacity. While the remaining 37.8% of capacity is not the most state-approved black chain. (In) 2015 the Southern black (market) yield (was) up to more than 40,000 tons of rare earth, (and) rare earth exports of non-normal channels can reach 1/3 of the total export volume. The market demand is unevenly distributed: luminescent materials, hydrogen storage materials and polishing material showed a surplus or decline. Permanent magnet materials benefited from new energy sources and (was) energy efficiency demand-driven, a larger proportion of demand, but the market itself there (still had).....excess capacity, (and demand)..... for raw materials is not high.
However, recently, purchasing and storage business and stimulation (of) domestic rare earth prices have changed the pre-downturn trend (and it has) continued to rise strongly. The commercial reserves were... in three batches: the first batch ... of 1300 tons of commercial purchasing and storage (comprised) yttrium oxide, erbium respectively 1,000 tons and 300 tons; the second batch of a total of 1600 tons of commercial purchasing and storage, praseodymium oxide, neodymium oxide, dysprosium, terbium oxide, europium oxide were purchasing and storage 1250 tons, 250 tons, 46 tons, 54 tons; the third batch of 2600 tons will be completed before August 31 purchasing and storage. The good news is that with commercial reserves there will be a corresponding state purchasing and storage, purchasing and storage plan total of 15,500 tons, the State Reserve prices due to the six groups will tender, the ultimate success, there are still a lot of uncertainty (and) resistance, particularly when (its) carr(ying) out has not been finalized.
At the same time the state of the supply-side reforms to promote (strength), () pre-integration has seen the implementation of effective early (?), coupled with intelligent electronic products, new energy vehicles and other needs(), boosted by the lowered?)market price of rare earth in 2016 (that) is expected to decline gradually ()and even show(ing) a slight (trend to) increase. (With) Domestic market-driven, rare earth export "increase in volume and price cuts", that trend is expected to be improved.
(20min delay)