Rare earth resource tax standards will be greatly increased

International Energy Network News: Yesterday, the State Council issued a "Several Opinions on Promoting the Sustainable and Healthy Development of the Rare Earth Industry." The industry stated that due to the objective of industrial integration, the central SOEs that have already been deployed in the south will quickly expand their strength in the support of the policy. The "Opinions" require a substantial increase in the collection of rare earth resources tax standards to curb resource mining profits. We will reform the price formation mechanism of rare earth products, intensify policy control, and gradually realize the unity of rare earth values ​​and prices.

Central SOEs benefit from consolidation The Opinions contain a number of specific policies that have attracted intense attention in the industry. Among them, the most notable is the statement of the industry's integration goals. According to industry analysis, the central enterprises represented by Chinalco and Minmetals will become the biggest beneficiaries of this round of large-scale integration of the rare earth industry and are expected to rapidly expand their strength maps. By that time, the ionic rare earth maps in the south of China will become a “three pillars” trend.

"Opinions" proposed that it will use 1-2 years, "the basic formation of a large enterprise-led pattern of rare earth industry, the South's top three ion industry concentration of the enterprise group concentration of more than 80%." In terms of integration, it is necessary to “support large companies to use capital as a link, and to vigorously promote resource integration through joint, merger, reorganization, etc., and significantly reduce the number of rare earth mining and smelting and separation enterprises and increase industrial concentration”.

The light rare earth resources in northern China have been basically completed by Baotou Steel's rare earths. However, the ionic rare earth mines in the south are scattered in many provinces and are mainly controlled by local governments. Among them, Jiangxi is a resourceful province with many repeated competitions by central enterprises and repeated failures.

The State Council made it clear that it is necessary to screen out the “top three” enterprise groups to become the dominant of the rare earth mines in the south, but it has not been clearly sorted by any criteria, which has caused intense concern in the industry.

“This time it should be mainly the centralized integration of central enterprises and local large companies. The idea is to use them to realize the state’s control of rare earth resources,” said Lin Donglu, secretary-general of the Chinese Society of Rare Earths, when interviewed by our reporter yesterday.

An insider of the China Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Association revealed that no one central enterprise can be selected if it is sorted by the amount of resources it owns. However, if smelting separation capability is the main reference indicator, then Minmetals will become the largest in the South, considering the existing resources and other factors. Second, it will be Guangshen Nonferrous Metals and China Aluminum Industry.

The largest reserve province of ionic rare earths in China is Jiangxi. At present, Yanzhou Rare Earth Minerals Co., Ltd. is the actual controller of rare earth resources in Jiangxi. Chinalco and Minmetals once hoped to obtain the mining rights, but they all lost their lives. Or stop at smelting and separation, or move to Guangdong and Guangxi. The industry has said that this time, they will most likely take advantage of the policies to quickly expand the territory and take the resources they had dreamed of before.

At the same time, the State Council requires strict control over the total amount of rare earth smelting and separation, and stipulates that during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, in addition to the state-approved mergers, reorganizations, and optimization of layout projects, the approval of new rare earth smelting and separation project shall be stopped, and existing rare earth smelting and separation projects shall be prohibited. Expand production scale. The sharp increase in industry concentration will allow large companies to have more say.

"China's rare earth mineral resources cannot be directly exported. Therefore, even if the mine is still in the hands of the local government, the concentration of the industry in the 'top 3' 80% is enough to conversely restrict the upstream. The purpose of the state's control of resources can be achieved as well. "The person told reporters.

The national reserve surfaced while proposing specific targets for industry consolidation. The State Council also formally proposed the “building a rare earth strategic reserve system” that has long been planned. The reporter learned from the industry that the rare earth national reserve will focus on elements such as helium, thorium, germanium and germanium that have less resources. In addition, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs issued an announcement yesterday to include rare earth ferroalloys in the management of rare earth export quotas. Future prices of rare earths, especially ionic rare earths, will continue to surge.

China has been planning for the strategic collection and storage of rare earths for a long time. In the future, apart from combining national reserves with corporate (commercial) reserves, physical reserves, and resources (land) reserves, China will also comprehensively plan the mining of ionic rare earths and northern light rare earth resources in the south, and designate a group of state-planned mining areas as Strategic resource reserve. For local resources that are included in the national reserve, the local government is responsible for the supervision and protection, and no exploitation is allowed without state approval. The central government will subsidize the regions and enterprises that implement resources and product reserves.

An industry insider involved in the formulation of the storage and storage system revealed in an interview with this newspaper yesterday that rare earth elements such as germanium, thorium, thorium, and lanthanum will be the focus of state purchasing and storage. He did not disclose the specific reserves, but said "the amount will not be too much, otherwise it will lead to sharp fluctuations in market prices."

Prior to this, Baotou Steel Rare Earth Co., Ltd. had begun to collect and store rare earths in the form of enterprises, and received subsidies from the two levels of government in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Baotou City. According to Lin Donglu, secretary general of the Chinese Society of Rare Earths, Baotou Rare Earth will continue to participate in this work as the executor of storage.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs issued an announcement to include rare earth iron alloys in the management of rare earth export quota licenses. Previously, a large number of germanium and antimony elements in China were exported to foreign countries at low prices in the form of ferroalloys, which caused a great loss of resources. The inclusion of rare earth iron alloys in export quota management will effectively control the above situation.

The industry said that the official launch of the State Reserve, coupled with export restrictions, will allow the current high prices of rare earth continue to rise. Analysts said that companies such as Baotou Rare Earth Co., Ltd. and Guangsheng Nonferrous Metals, which have rare earth resources, will continue to benefit from this.

Another focus in accelerating the development of applied technology research and development “Opinions” is to “accelerate R&D and industrialization of rare earth key application technologies”. The Opinions stated that in accordance with the overall requirements for the development of strategic emerging industries, we should guide and organize rare earth production and application companies, R&D institutions, and colleges and universities, vigorously develop deep processing and comprehensive utilization technologies, and promote the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements with independent intellectual property rights. The development of strategic emerging industries provides support. This will greatly benefit the deep processing of rare earth industries.

Most of China's rare earth deep-processing enterprises are still in the intermediate or even primary development stage and their industrial added value is low. This is also considered to be an important reason why the industry is unable to digest the current high prices of rare earth ore.

“Now the State Council strongly supports R&D of rare earth application technologies, and related industries will obtain better policy support and the industrial environment will be even more superior. Leading companies will benefit from this.” Securities analysts said. At present, China's enterprises engaged in deep processing of rare earths mainly include Zhongke Sanhuan, Ningbo Yunsheng, Antai Technology and others.