Is china cleaning up

China appear to be tightening the market


04 Jan 2016

China's rare earth consolidation plan on target
BEIJING (Metal-Pages) 04-Jan-16.  China's plan to consolidate its rare earths industry is on target following the government's successful examination of the reconstruction of Northern Rare Earth Group and Xiamen Tungsten, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). This is part of a consolidation plan that began in 2014.
On 30 December 2015, MIIT and the local government in Inner Mongolia met to examine the reconstruction of Northern Rare Earth Group. The company has completed the integration of eight rare earth smelting and separating companies in Inner Mongolia, plus Gansu Rare Earth Advanced Materials in Gansu province.

Xiamen Tungsten Rare Earth Group was successful at integrating all rare earth mines in Fujian province, except those belonging to China Minmetals. It has closed two rare earth smelting and separating companies with total production capacity of 1,100 t/year.

In addition, Southern Rare Earth Group has signed an agreement for capital increases and share purchasing with Ganzhou Rare Earth, Jiangxi Copper and Jiangxi Tungsten, which means that their reconstruction work is complete. Southern Rare Earths Group is one of the six groups aiming to consolidate China’s rare earth market, and leads rare earth integration in Jiangxi province.

MIIT and relevant departments have been pushing for consolidation of all China's rare earth mining and processing assets under the umbrella of six large industry groups: Chinalco, Northern Rare Earth, Xiamen Tungsten, China Minmetals, Guangdong Rare Earth and Southern Rare Earth.