[minutes] about yttrium-rich europium ore-everything you want to know is here!

SMM8 March 19: in the online live market conference hosted by SMM, SMM analyst Hou Jinchen delivered a special live broadcast on the theme of rare earth mines. At the meeting, with medium yttrium-rich europium ore as the main line, the global rare earth ore and the industry chain of medium yttrium-rich europium ore were introduced, and finally returned to the market, and the trend of rare earth mineral prices was predicted.

A Summary of Global rare Earth Minerals

China is a large reserve country of rare earth resources in the world, which is not only rich in reserves, but also has the advantages of complete minerals and rare earth elements, high rare earth grade and so on. Up to now, in addition to Bayan Obo in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, Gannan in Jiangxi, northern Guangdong in Guangdong and Liangshan in Sichuan, rare earth deposits have also been found in Shandong, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hubei, Henan, Shanxi, Liaoning, Shaanxi and Xinjiang, but the amount of rare earth resources is much less than that in mineralized concentrated enrichment areas.

98% of the country's total rare earth resources are distributed in Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong and other regions, with the distribution characteristics of light in the north and heavy in the south.

Light rare earths are mainly distributed in the Bayan Obo mining area in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Its rare earth reserves account for more than 83% of the country's total rare earth reserves, ranking first in the world. It is the main production base of light rare earths in China.

Ionic medium and heavy rare earths are mainly distributed in southern areas such as Ganzhou of Jiangxi Province and Longyan of Fujian Province, especially in Nanling area, which are easy to mine and extract, and have become an important production base of medium and heavy rare earths in China. Although China is rich in rare earth resources, due to a large number of exports in the past years and rampant illegal exploitation, the reserves of rare earth resources have declined significantly, and China has paid more and more attention to it. Later, China set targets for annual rare earth mining and smelting separation. Taking the first batch of rare earth ore indicators this year as an example, ionic rare earth ores account for only 14%, and mixed rare earth minerals account for 52%.

In recent years, the global production of rare earth minerals has increased year by year. China is the world's largest producer of rare earth minerals.

In recent years, the global rare earth mineral production has increased year by year, and the global rare earth production will continue to increase in the future. The expansion of rare earth production capacity in other regions except China will become the main driving force of the increase in global rare earth production capacity. China's share of global rare earth production capacity will decrease to a certain extent, but by a small margin, and China is still the main supply source of rare earths in the world.

According to data released by USGS, the world produced 240000 tons of rare earth minerals in 2020, of which China produced 140000 tons, accounting for nearly 58 percent, making it the world's largest producer of rare earth minerals, followed by the United States, Myanmar, Australia and other countries.

The reserves of rare earth (REO) in Bayan Obo tailings are about 10 times that of Mountain pass.

Bayan Obo ore: mixed rare earth ore containing minerals such as fluorocarbon cerite and monazite. The rare earth REO reserves of the tailing reservoir are 13.82 million tons and the grade is 7.01%.

Bayan Obo mining area is a large-scale iron-rare earth-niobium and other polymetallic symbiotic ore, and its rare earth resource reserves rank first in the world. Among them, the rare earth ore is gradually transferred to the tailings dam of the concentrator of Baotou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., thus becoming the storage place of rare earth ore. The rare earth ore here is a mixed rare earth ore, which contains both fluorocarbon cerite and monazite.

Baotou Steel acquired the tailing reservoir of Baotou Iron and Steel Group in 2015, that is, the tailings assets of Baotou Iron and Steel Company are mainly formed by the accumulation of tailings resources after iron separation of Bayan Obo iron ore. In 2016, Baotou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. began to carry out rare earth concentrate business, and rare earth products are mainly supplied to the north.

Mountain Pass: is the world's largest single fluorocarbon cerite, with rare earth REO reserves of 1.3 million tons and an average grade of 7.98 per cent. The Mount pass Mine is located in San Berdino County, California. The mine began to resume production in 2018 and has been granted the right to underwrite the mine since Leshan Sheng and its stake in MP Minerals.

According to a data compiled by the fifth geological and mineral exploration and development in Inner Mongolia, the tailings of Bayan Obo tailings have a rare earth oxide resource content of 13.82 million tons, a grade of 7.01%, and a service life of about 53 years. The Mountain Pass mine has about 1.3 million tons of REO reserves and an average grade of 7.98 per cent. The REO reserves of Baotou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. are about 10 times that of MP.

Analysis of the industrial chain of medium yttrium-rich europium ore

The medium yttrium-rich europium ore is an ionic rare earth ore, which is divided into two types of minerals, mainly light rare earth and heavy rare earth, which are mainly produced in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Fujian and other southern areas, with low content of radioactive elements and easy mining. The extraction process is simple.

The current national standard of "ionic rare earth ore rare earth carbonate" requires that the content of rare earth elements in medium yttrium europium-rich ore is not less than 26%, terbium oxide is not less than 0.65%, and dysprosium oxide is not less than 3.5%.

Medium yttrium-rich europium-rich mixed rare earth oxalate, also known as medium yttrium-rich europium-rich ore, can be obtained by burning mixed rare earth carbonate. Myanmar is an important source of China's medium yttrium-rich europium ore. In 2020, 58% of China's mixed rare earth carbonate was imported from Myanmar, while 90% of the mixed rare earth carbonate came from Myanmar.

Last year, China imported an average of more than 1400 tons of unlisted rare earth oxides and more than 700 tons of mixed rare earth carbonate from Myanmar every month.

Prediction of the trend of rare Earth Mineral Price

The pricing of medium yttrium europium-rich ore is based on praseodymium-neodymium, terbium and perylene oxides. Medium yttrium europium-rich ore price = [praseodymium-neodymium oxide content * settlement day average price * yield * total standard ore + terbium oxide content * settlement day average price * yield * total standard ore + dysprosium oxide content * settlement day average price * yield * total standard ore + lutetium oxide content * settlement day average price * yield * total standard ore]-processing fee.

According to SMM, China's praseodymium and neodymium oxide production in July was 5965 tons, down 11% from the previous month, mainly in Sichuan, Guangdong and Inner Mongolia. Due to the influence of environmental factors, rare earth separation plants in Sichuan and Guangdong are still in a state of large-scale reduction and suspension of production. According to SMM, praseodymium-neodymium oxide production in Sichuan decreased by 74% month-on-month in July, while that in Guangdong decreased by 59% month-on-month this month. Under the influence of limited electricity, in July, most smelting separation plants in Inner Mongolia were affected, but the reduction in praseodymium and neodymium oxide was not large, and the output of individual enterprises decreased by 1/5. In addition, a large factory in Inner Mongolia stopped production due to relocation and is expected to continue until November.

As the rare earth mines are priced on the basis of oxides, the oxides rose rapidly in July, so the prices of rare earth mines also rose with the oxide prices, the miners were full of goods and hesitant to sell, only a small amount of shipments, and the raw materials of the separation plant were tight.

In the process of rare earth mining, rare earth elements can be extracted with ammonium sulfate, and then precipitated with oxalic acid. Rare earth oxides can be obtained by burning, and some of them will be precipitated with ammonium carbonate, but the precipitation rate is slow. And the purity of the product is low.

Now it takes about 20 tons of ammonium sulfate and 2 tons of oxalic acid to produce a ton of rare earth ore. According to friends in Yunnan, the price of ammonium sulfate at the beginning of the year was 800yuan / ton, but now the price is 1300-1520 yuan / ton; the price of oxalic acid at the beginning of the year is 4000 yuan / ton, now it is 6000 yuan / ton, an increase of nearly 50%. Affected by customs closure, the price of imported oxalic acid in Myanmar has now reached 30,000 yuan / ton.

In addition, according to SMM, June-August is the month with the highest rainfall of the year in Myanmar, which not only increases the difficulty of mining, but also affects the quality of rare earth mines.

In terms of the epidemic, since July, with the spread of novel coronavirus Delta mutant strain, more than 200 million cases have been confirmed by COVID-19 worldwide. Myanmar has also ushered in the third wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, with more than 200000 confirmed cases and more than 2800 new cases yesterday.

The third wave of the epidemic in Myanmar began to break out rapidly in June and July, and the speed of transmission, the number of confirmed cases and the death toll were significantly higher than those of the previous two waves. In mid-July, the confirmed diagnosis rate in Myanmar once exceeded the 40% mark. Coupled with the impact of political changes in Myanmar since February 1, the country's health care system has also been hit, exacerbating the impact of the epidemic on Myanmar.

On the demand side, rare earths are known as industrial vitamins with a small amount and a wide range of uses. In 2020, rare earth permanent magnets account for the largest proportion of rare earth downstream consumption in China, followed by metallurgical machinery, petrochemical industry, polishing materials, glass ceramics, hydrogen storage, catalysis, luminescence, agriculture and other fields.

At present, with the rapid development of high-performance rare earth permanent magnet industry, automobile and wind power are still the two main forces in the downstream consumption of this area. in addition, frequency conversion air conditioners, consumer electronics, energy-saving elevators and other fields also account for a lot of proportion.

In July 2021, the new energy vehicle market showed the characteristics of "not light in the off-season". Production and sales continued to grow compared with the same period last year, and both reached record highs. In July 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 284000 and 271000 respectively, an increase of 14.3% and 5.8% respectively over the previous month, and an increase of 1.7 times and 1.6 times over the same period last year. From January to July of 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 1.504 million and 1.478 million respectively, a two-fold increase over the same period last year.

SMM predicts that China will produce 2.78 million new energy vehicles in 2021 and 14.22 million new energy vehicles by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 20 per cent during the 2021E-2030E year.

As the current driving motors of new energy vehicles are mainly permanent magnet Synchronize motors, this growth rate will quickly boost the demand for NdFeB, and about 30% of the praseodymium-neodymium metal in 1 ton of NdFeB, which will further boost the consumption of rare earths. Such as wind power, frequency conversion air conditioning, traditional cars and other fields, also showed a sustainable development trend. According to SMM, the mainstream middle and high-end magnetic materials enterprises said that at present, the orders are sufficient and the demand is still strong, while the middle and low-end magnetic materials enterprises said that the orders were stable, and each took the initiative to reduce orders because they were unable to resist the sharp rise and fall in raw material prices.

In the third quarter, praseodymium and neodymium oxide rose rapidly, setting a year-to-date high price of 630000 yuan / ton. Terbium oxide, dysprosium oxide trend is relatively weak, lack of strength to rise, is now in the pullback period. According to SMM, under the tightening of supply and demand, the price of mid-yttrium europium-rich ore is expected to rise to 280000 in the second half of