Rare earth is not only a hot industry in China, but also an important raw material resource for new material manufacturing. When the relationship between China and the United States and other developed countries changes, rare earth is easy to become the focus of public opinion at home and abroad.

In addition, from the perspective of the fundamentals of rare earth industry, the current market has strong expectations for the purchase and storage of the State Reserve Bureau. If the purchase and storage of the State Reserve Bureau can be implemented smoothly, it will help to promote the price rise of rare earth and protect China's advantageous resource industry.
China and Japan account for 57% and 21% of the total global consumption, followed by the United States and Europe, accounting for 8%.
China has the richest rare earth reserves in the world. According to USGS data, the global rare earth reserves in 2019 will be 120 million tons, of which China's reserves will reach 44 million tons, accounting for 37.96% of the world's total. Next came Brazil and Vietnam, both 22 million tons, accounting for 18.98% of the total, followed by Russia and India, 12 million tons and 6.9 million tons, accounting for 10.35% and 5.95% of the total, respectively.
It is worth emphasizing that China's reserve advantage in medium and heavy rare earth resources is particularly prominent, accounting for more than 90% of the world's proven reserves.
In terms of output, Antaike data shows that in 2019, China's rare earth mine output will be about 132000 tons of REO, accounting for 63.08% of the global total rare earth mining, ranking first in the world. The output of rare earth smelting and separation products in China is about 155000 tons, accounting for 88.18% of the global total output. China occupies an absolute dominant position in rare earth reserves and production, and this pattern will not change significantly in the medium and long term.
In the same year, the total amount of rare earth mining in the United States was about 26000 tons, one fifth of that in China. In addition, there are data showing that China's rare earth reserves are 44 million tons, while the United States has only 1.4 million tons.
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Rare earth is the general name of lanthanide, scandium and yttrium in the periodic table. Rare earth is precious because it is rare, non renewable and difficult to separate, purify and process.
According to China rare earth network, the rare earth industry chain includes three links: raw ore mining (upstream), smelting separation (midstream) and processing application (downstream). Raw ore mining is divided into mining and beneficiation. The raw ore containing rare earth oxide is mined and processed to form concentrate.
The middle stream smelting separation process is to form rare earth compound or single rare earth metal from rare earth concentrate by pyrometallurgical technology or hydrometallurgical technology. The pyrometallurgical process is simple, the production efficiency is high, the hydrometallurgical process is complex, but the product purity is high, which is the main smelting method adopted by smelting separation Enterprises at present.
The downstream demand of rare earth mainly includes permanent magnet materials, catalytic materials, polishing materials and traditional industries such as glass, petrochemical and metallurgy. Benefiting from the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, wind power and energy-saving household appliances industry in recent years, permanent magnet materials have the largest proportion of domestic rare earth downstream demand.
Rare earth permanent magnet materials are divided into samarium cobalt permanent magnet materials and neodymium iron boron permanent magnet materials. Neodymium iron boron permanent magnet materials are the third generation of rare earth permanent magnet materials, which are the most widely used rare earth permanent magnet materials with the highest output.
China's NdFeB production accounts for more than 90% of the global production. In terms of demand, new energy vehicles are the core growth point of the future consumption of magnetic materials, mainly the driving motors used in new energy vehicles.
In addition, it is worth noting that in the military field, rare earth can greatly improve the performance of alloy tactics used in weapons and equipment. Once rare earth technology is used in the military, it can bring progress in military science and technology.
According to the statistics of Jinli permanent magnet in its prospectus, 31% of the domestic downstream NdFeB permanent magnet materials are wind power generation market, 15% are new energy vehicles, 10% are energy-saving air conditioners, 9% are intelligent elevators, and 30% are consumer electronics.
As the proportion of new energy vehicles continues to expand in the future, the demand for permanent magnet materials will be better in the medium and long term. Catalytic materials are mainly used in the traditional application fields of rare earth such as automobile exhaust purification and petroleum sulfide cracking; the demand of catalytic materials, polishing materials, glass, petrochemical, metallurgy and other traditional industries has remained stable in recent years.
According to the data of the Ministry of industry and information technology, in 2019, the overall mining index of rare earth mines in China will be 132000 tons, with a year-on-year increase of 10%, of which the mining index of light rare earth will reach 113000 tons, and that of medium and heavy rare earth will be 19000 tons.
Since 2015, the total index of light rare earth has increased by 29.6%, while the total index of medium and heavy rare earth has only increased by 7%. In terms of sub enterprises, light rare earth ore indicators are mainly distributed in three groups: Northern rare earth group, southern rare earth group and China rare earth group, with northern rare earth accounting for 68.5%; medium and heavy rare earth ore indicators are mainly distributed in four groups: Guangdong rare earth group, China Rare Earth group, southern rare earth group and Minmetals rare earth group, with Guangdong rare earth group and China rare earth group accounting for more than 50%.
In 2019, the Ministry of industry and information technology and other 12 ministries and commissions issued the notice on continuously strengthening the order rectification of the rare earth industry, which required to focus on the prominent problems disturbing the industry order such as private mining and illegal processing of rare earth mineral products, establish a multi department joint inspection mechanism for the first time, and carry out a special inspection once a year, which means that the rare earth rectification industry has officially entered normalization.
With more and more attention paid to the strategic value of rare earth, the Chinese government has also taken strict measures to limit the production of rare earth.
According to the data, the total amount control plan of rare earth mineral products in 2019 is 132000 tons (REO), with a year-on-year increase of 12000 tons, including 19000 tons of medium and heavy rare earth. In 2020, China's first batch of rare earth mining total amount control index is 66000 tons, corresponding to 50% of 2019.
According to the 13th five year plan, the total amount control plan of domestic rare earth is expected to be flat or slightly increased in 2020, but the increment is light rare earth, not medium and heavy rare earth.
Every year, the United States imports a large number of rare earths from China for the Defense Department's weapons research and development. But in recent years, with China's policies to control rare earth mining and export, the United States has felt the crisis.
Earlier, a U.S. Senator proposed legislation to get rid of China's dependence on rare earth, either through various means to help the U.S. revive the rare earth industry, or to find other rare earth importing countries. But these two methods need to spend a lot of time and communication costs. Therefore, in a short period of time, the United States still has to face the problem of being "stuck" by China's rare earth.
Recently, China's Ministry of Natural Resources announced once again that it will continue to control the exploitation of rare earth, tungsten and other natural resources in 2020. In addition, China will strengthen inspection and supervision of rare earth mining enterprises. While protecting the environment and resources, the rare earth mining plan should be increased in an orderly way to meet the market demand.