Rough year for global rare earths as illegal mining takes its toll

• Autores: Industrial Minerals
• Localización: Industrial Minerals, ISSN 0019-8544, Nº. 577, 2015 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Noviembre)
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • It's difficult to call. "I don't see the rare earths markets changing much over the coming six to nine months, but hopefully we will see some improvement by the end of 2016," said Dudley Kingsnorth, professor at Curtin Graduate School of Business in Australia and director at IMCOA. He sees illegal mining in China as the greatest challenge facing the industry. Changes in China's taxes and quotas as well as substitution and efforts to increase efficiency of rare earths usage are also factors still impacting the industry's prospects. The forthcoming conference will enable the participants, from explorers and producers to consumers and researchers to debate these issues.

    The aim of the cancellation of export quotas and taxes, the imposition of "revised" resource taxes on rare earths, stricter enforcement of environmental legislation and the effective transfer of rare earth mining quotas to the "big six" government-owned rare earths entities appears to have been to facilitate the consolidation of the industry. However, it seems that the complicated logistics associated with enforcing these changes, coupled with unbridled illegal rare earth activities, are hampering this consolidation and hence the full control of the industry by the Chinese government.