Up Up Up We go, page-143

Strange every one says move down the product stream. Has any one looked at the current profit potential? The current differential for making metals is tinny
PRO 1040 to PR metal 1390 just a 30 % increase
NdO 1130 to ND metal 1380 just a 22 % increase
NdPr O 1020 to NdPr alloy just a 25% increase%
All prices from Friday 3/18. I only update my data base on Fridays.

To put this in perspective a distributor in US that takes product in and reships it in same box and does nothing to it and does not provide any financing or other features usually marks up the product 33% A distributor that repackages provides financing and maybe advertises Marks up 50% to 100% depending on how many things they do. Metal manufacturing is both equipment intensive and energy intensive. Making metals does not look very attractive to me. Especially when you consider Oxygen is driven off lowering weight. That REE Metals corrodes rapidly (Returning to REE O) with any exposure to air. Once they are a metal lots of special handling required.


Now if you look at Magnets it is the same story. Look at SMM magnet page https://www.metal.com/Rare-Earth-Magnets you will see there are many different formulations and the average price is about 400 RMB Needing to make so many different products also adds cost The makeup is Nd2 Fe14 B using atomic weights we can state the following.
Nd 144 x 2 = 288
FE 55,8 X 14 = 781
B 10.8 = 10.8
Total AM = 1079

total ND = 288 / 1079 = 27%

RMB 400/ .27 = 1500 which is only 25% more than ND metal.. considering we did not include cost of Iron and boron does not look like much profit in Magnets either. My guess is China is taking a loss to grow the market.

AL says Lynas has to be careful about competing with customers when asked about expanding into Metals and Magnets. My guess is that with current pricing it is just not a profitable business. Especially when compared to REE O. My guess she does not want to point out this low profit. Because long term Magnets have to go up lowering demand or oxides have to come down.

JMO I think XI wants oxides to come down because he is tired of subsidizing his Metal, Magnet and Motor business to grow the Market. Easiest place to start is the one with most profit.