Domestic rare earth market appears to be in short supply and deep pressure on deep processing enterprises
December 16 13:06:25, 2022
Rare Earth is ushering in a shortage situation. Due to the recent surge in rare earth prices and the firm control of the volume and price of rare earth ore producers, the rare earth market has entered the hottest stage.  A number of rare earth material deep processing producers told reporters that it is very difficult to purchase rare earth raw materials from the market without a stable purchase channel established in advance. Even if the price continues to increase, it is difficult to purchase in sufficient quantities. High-level boom in rare earth mining links Rare earth prices have barely stopped rising in recent years. At present, the price of niobium alloy has soared to 30,000-45 million yuan / ton, bismuth oxide rose to 330,000 yuan / ton, and strontium iron alloy rose to 2.5 million / ton. Compared with the beginning of the year, the increase is more than 50%, and the strontium iron alloy even reaches more than 70%. At this price, the market is still out of stock and the market is hot. According to news from many sources in the industry, it is very common for rare earth suppliers to actively or passively bid. "They have just signed a supply contract recently, and the market price has changed in the blink of an eye," said the industry source. The above phenomenon fully reflects the high boom of the upstream rare earth mining sector. A senior executive of a large-scale rare earth enterprise in the north admitted to the reporter that under the current dual role of industry policy and market expectations, no matter which supply chain is reluctant to sell, the continuous rise of rare earth raw materials will be a trend. In addition, the reporter learned from the industry that a large number of institutions have organized a field investigation of Baotou Steel Rare Earth (84.12, 0.00, 0.00%). According to the research information and the information the reporter learned from the company, the company has not started to use export quotas. It is expected that the export business in the second quarter will bring considerable profits to the company. The high prosperity of the rare earth mining industry has also continued to attract many companies to intervene. On March 12, Chinalco (10.44, 0.00, 0.00%) and Guangxi Nonferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd. and R&D Rare Earth New Materials Co., Ltd. jointly signed the “Guangxi Rare Earth Development Cooperation Framework Agreementâ€. The three parties will jointly set up a joint venture company to jointly develop Guangxi rare earth resources. It is reported that this time Chinalco will enter Guangxi, not only to obtain resources, but also to build rare earth deep processing enterprises on the spot with the help of the research and development of rare earths. This is in line with the idea of ​​local governments building a complete industrial chain. According to the statement of the press release, Chinalco, which has repeatedly hit the wall in Jiangxi, seems to have finally received the "strong support of the Guangxi government." The pressure of deep processing enterprises is heavy. While the value of mineral resources is continuously optimistic, the reporter found that the rare earth enterprises have already complained about the current price. Earlier, an analysis report said that since the price of NdFeB has also risen sharply last week, it has ended the previous upside down phenomenon. This indicates that there has been a strong transfer ability in the downstream of rare earths, which in turn will support the continued rise in the prices of rare earth raw materials. But downstream companies don't think so. The senior executives of Zhongke Sanhuan (26.31, 0.00, 0.00%) told the Shanghai Securities Journal that they had to digest the price of raw materials for quite some time. The downstream customers of NdFeB also have difficulty accepting the rapid increase in cost and the channel of cost transfer is not smooth. . In addition to the soaring price, rare earth permanent magnet enterprises have actually been difficult to purchase normally. "Our companies like us feel that it is very difficult to purchase goods. Small and medium-sized NdFeB manufacturers are hard to sustain." The above-mentioned three-ring people from Zhongke told reporters that under the strong bullish expectations, rare earth mines and traders collectively mine Reluctant to sell, the market has lost normal supply of resources, and NdFeB enterprises have no stable raw material expectations. It is reported that a number of NdFeB producers in Shanxi have begun to reduce production under the cost of raw materials and supply pressure, and some manufacturers have reduced production by half. A number of rare earth permanent magnet enterprises have called for the uneven distribution of upstream and downstream profits of the rare earth industry to be worthy of attention.