SHANGHAI, Apr 25 (SMM) - As a resource-intensive industry, the rare earth separation/smelting industry is highly dependent on rare earth mineral resources. Domestic separation enterprises are mostly located in the main producing areas of rare earth ores.
Overseas rare earth ore resources are widely distributed in North America, Australia, Southeast Asia, Africa and other places.
Among them, MP mine in the United States and Lynas in Australia are all light rare earth mines with stable production capacity. Africa has Rainbow Rare Minerals mine
and other several projects under construction and planning.
Although overseas rare earth ore reserves are abundant, due to the immature mining technology, overseas market is highly dependent on China's export of rare earth from rare earth separation to magnetic material processing.
High reliance on China has granted China with concentrated pricing power in global rare earth resources. The establishment of China Rare Earth Group in 2021 and the improvement of internal management efficiency will enhance the country’s superiority.
In this scenario, there is a need to develop the rare earth industry independently overseas.
At present, the middle and heavy rare earths are mainly produced in Southeast Asia, with China being the major destination. The development of overseas rare earth separation and smelting industry is going toward “desinicization”, and the most likely direction is the separation of light rare earths.
In 2021, Europe and the United States have successively formulated drafts to support the development of the rare earth industry through tax relief and other means. From the perspective of comprehensive cost and supporting industries, the possibility of de-sinicization of the rare earth industry chain in Europe and the United States is relatively low.
The traditional separation and smelting of rare earth ore is mainly based on acid leaching. The rare earth ore is made into oxides through acid leaching, precipitation, burning and other steps.
In the separation of rare earth ores, lanthanum and cerium elements with lighter mass and lower purity are separated first, followed by praseodymium and neodymium elements. Due to the high content in raw ore, lanthanum oxide and cerium oxide are cheap, and there are problems such as oversupply and overstocking. PrNd oxide is the most profitable sub-sector of light rare earth separation enterprises.
Due to geological reasons, in areas that accommodate a large number of domestic light rare earth ore separation enterprises such as Sichuan, the soil is rich in chlorine, and the halogen manufacturing industry and chemical industry are relatively developed, resulting in low separation cost in terms of facets like auxiliary materials. In addition, the environmental protection cost when developing rare earth separation industry in Europe and the United States is relatively high.
Although Africa is rich in monazite reserves, most of them are projects under construction or planning. Moreover, the radioactive elements like uranium and thorium contained in monazite require special production line and equipment and technical personnel to process, which makes the separation cost higher than that of conventional rare earth elements and raises the threshold.
Hence the separation of light rare earth oxide in Inner Mongolia and Sichuan has obvious cost advantage compared with overseas separation enterprises.
In addition, the domestic rare earth upstream and downstream industries have sophisticated production technology and matured supporting facilities. The overseas rare earth industry is immature in supporting industries. Even if the upstream separation of rare earths can reduce the dependence on China's rare earths, the downstream magnetic material manufacturing process still needs to rely on Chinese exports. The overseas rare earth industry has a long way to go based on the current situation.
